


Making Clouds From the Ashes

by kubis



Category: Generation Kill, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Teenagers Fighting In a War - General Warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 15:22:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8718943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kubis/pseuds/kubis
Summary: Harry Potter AU/fusion. Brad, Nate, Ray, and others, are starting their last year at school a couple months after the Battle of Hogwarts. It's a story about that year, and about figuring out how to move on after the war and how to deal with the rest of their lives coming up fast. If you're concerned about the warnings in tags, I explained more in the end notes.





	1. Chapter 1

The Battle of Hogwarts had changed everyone. The whole war had, obviously. But for those who were there that night, for every student and every teacher, life seemed different since then.  
  
It had been four months and the world liked to pretend it was back to normal. Brad didn't like to pretend anything and there was nothing normal about how he felt today, on a train back to what used to be his favorite place on Earth.  
  
“Is it just me or is it weird?” Nate said, shutting the door behind him and fuck, Brad was not ready for this.  
  
“Weird?”  
  
Nate shrugged. “Coming back.”  
  
 _Oh_. Okay then.  
  
“I'm not as excited as I usually was,” Brad said and Nate nodded. “But we may just be getting older.”  
  
That got him half a smile.  
  
“Or we may be a little scared.”  
  
Brad made a show of looking around the empty corridor.  
  
“Shut your mouth, Fick,” he said. “Or we will take back your Gryffindor card, prefect or not.”  
  
“I would love to see you try.”  
  
“Is that a challenge?” Brad asked, raising his eyebrows. “Because you know what that does to _us_ Gryffindors. Don't be a tease.”  
  
Nate threw his head back and laughed, and Brad smiled, feeling his stomach tighten and relax. Maybe they could do it after all.  
  
Maybe everything was going to be fine.  
  
  
#  
  
  
That was obviously a momentary, Fick-related insanity, because everything was not going to be fine. Everything was, judging from the looks of it, going to be a disaster.  
  
Half the students standing in front of the main entrance looked outright scared, gaping at the castle with their eyes wide open or looking anywhere but there. The rest tried to maintain their game face, with varying effects.  
  
Professor McGonagall was waiting for them, with her back straight and her head held high. Seemingly unflappable, but Brad knew better now.  
  
“Welcome back,” she said to all of them, looking around as if checking if everyone was present and okay. “Hogwarts has missed you.”  
  
And stupid thing was, it worked. Brad felt the muscles of his back relax a little, and he heard loud, uneven exhales from around him. A couple people even laughed.  
  
They followed her inside like a big wave coming to a shore.  
  
  
#  
  
  
He stepped into the Great Hall and froze, causing Ray to bump into him. Bryan muttered something and shoved him to the side, but Brad didn't really register that because he was staring at the right side of the room, where the Gryffindor table was waiting for them. Where the bodies laid, after. He remembered a woman with purple hair, among others. He tried to forget about Fred Weasley, and Mike Atwood, and Laura Banks.  
  
Cold fingers circled his wrist and pulled, making him look to the side, right into Nate's face with his furrowed brows and careful eyes.  
  
Brad shook his head and followed him to their table. “What are you eating first?” he asked, changing the subject.  
  
It was a tradition of sorts, a little reminder of their first night here, when they were amazed, and scared, and amazed again. “What are you eating first?” Ray had asked, right after he’d joined the Gryffindor table, the last boy from their train compartment, pushing in between Brad and Eric. They did this every year since then.  
  
Nate went with it, like Brad knew he would.  
  
“I've been missing that chocolate cheesecake for the whole summer. What do you think I'm going to do?”  
  
“I think it's baffling that you haven't already combusted from all the chocolate you inhale.”  
  
“There's not enough chocolate _in the world_ ,” Nate said and sat down next to Ray, shifting aside to make room for Brad.  
  
“Amen, brother,” Rudy shouted from across the table as if they were deaf. "I can’t wait for the feast to begin. I’m going to eat all the chocolate cookies they will give us.”  
  
“I hope you’re going to control him,” Ray said to Pappy, who shrugged.  
  
“Relaaaaaax,” he said, half-smiling. “First, we just got here, let him have some. Second, I'm not his fucking mother.”  
  
“I should hope so. Since I have seen you two in the dungeon's corridor that one time last year, and judging by the kissing while half-dressed, it definitely didn’t look like a parental relationship to me,” Ray said, but he was cut short by the arrival of dozens of scared dwarfs.  
  
Also called the first year students.  
  
Brad felt old, looking at them. There was nothing like seeing the Great Hall for the first time, nothing like being in Hogwarts for the first time. Brad remembered that excitement, fear mixed up with amazement, and he remembered thinking that since he was here at last, everything was possible now. This year Brad missed that feeling more than ever, it was never as far away from him as today.  
  
“Is it just me or is it... weird? Different. I’m not really sure.” Nate whispered, looking away from the kids at the entrance to look at Brad with those green eyes wide open and bright.  
  
“It's not just you,” he said, gripping his fork so he wouldn't do something stupid like reaching out and putting his hand where it didn't belong.  
  
This year was going to be a fucking disaster.  
  
The sorting ceremony felt like it was shorter than usual, like there were fewer kids than in the previous years, and he couldn't help but wonder how many would be there if it weren't for the war. Still, it gave them fourteen new housemates whose names and faces Brad was trying to commit to memory in between eating his weight in chicken wings, potatoes, and salads.  
  
After awhile, when even Rudy was too full to eat anything, and the rest of them were too full to talk, Professor McGonagall stood up and came to the podium.  
  
“We lost so much this past year,” she started and the sudden, complete silence was like an echo to her words, reverberating through the hall and everyone in it. “These past few years, even. We fought a war and we lost members of our families, our friends, our colleagues... Some of us lost faith, some lost hope, and some of us may feel like they will never be safe again. But we all have to remember that we fought a war and we won. We survived and we came back here, or we came for the first time, because we know we are not done yet. The war changed us, but it did not defeat us. We have to remember that. We have to remember that when it is difficult, when it is hard to remind ourselves about the good days. We have to remember that when we struggle, because I can tell you for certain, each and every one of us will struggle. We have to remember that we fought, that we won, and that we survived.”  
  
When the clapping started, it was loud and strong. Many people were crying, most didn't even pretend not to. Brad's chest felt heavy and his arms felt even heavier when he lifted them to join the applause.  
  
  
#  
  
  
On the first night of the new school year, there was always a party. Every member of the Gryffindor House gathered in their Common Room to share stories of their summer and their plans for the next year.  
  
For Brad, Nate, Ray, and Poke, among others, it was also the last year at Hogwarts.  
  
“Can you actually believe that shit?” Ray asked, shifting on the couch. “Our last year here.”  
  
“Don't be so sure,” Brad advised him. “It may not be, for you.”  
  
“Fuck you, I will pass everything.” Ray's loud voice raised a few heads in their direction, but everyone but the first-years were used to him at this point, so they let it be.  
  
“They will be so glad to have a chance to get rid of him, they will not waste it on failing him, Iceman,” Poke said from his end of the couch.  
  
Brad nodded. “You have a point.”  
  
“You're all full of shit,” Ray told them.  
  
Indeed they were. Everyone knew that Ray was actually surprisingly brilliant at some things, like Charms and Potions, and at least passable at others, with the History of Magic being the worst of it.  
  
“Well, if nothing else, we can be quite certain that this year will be better than the last,” Eric Kocher said and the mood changed so fast Brad thought he could almost see it hightail from the room.  
  
He was curious what it would take for them to forget. If they ever could, even. Not all of it, obviously, but it would be nice if it could get... a little easier to remember.  
  
Brad remembered his flashback earlier in the evening, when they were going to dinner. He didn't have them often, only two or three a month during the summer holidays, but they were still there.  
  
“To a better year, then,” Nate said, raising his mug.  
  
“To normalcy,” Poke raised his.  
  
“To Quidditch,” Eric said, smiling a little.  
  
“To all the sex,” Ray stood up, holding his glass high in the air. “And by that, I mean to Walt,” he added, smirking, while they groaned.  
  
“To the upcoming end of living with Ray,” Brad said, kicking him in the leg.  
  
Ginny Weasley passed by, nodded at them and gave Nate a small smile. They bonded last year as prefects and Dumbledore's Army leaders, and she and Nate were good friends now.  
  
She apparently heard their toasts, because she got that look in her face, that serious 'we'll go down fighting' look, and she jumped on to one of the high chairs in the room and shouted, “QUIET!”  
  
Most of them were used to listening to her, so it only took a couple of seconds for all the conversations to die down.  
  
She raised her glass and looked around the room, slowly.  
  
“To those who died. To those who didn't make it.”  
  
Brad could see her swallow up a choke, but she held on. She stood there, on the chair that was older than her mother, probably, and she held her head high, just like last year, so many times.  
  
People started standing up and repeating after her, one by one, until the whole room had their arms raised for those who couldn't be here tonight.  
  
  
#  
  
  
Sitting in the classroom wasn't any less weird now than it was at the end of last year. They had never stopped going to class then, but for days after the Battle it felt completely surreal, like coming back home and realizing your bed didn't fit you anymore.  
  
Now they were bombarded with talks about the NEWTs and how important these exams were, how essential for their future. They were expected to have everything figured out. They were told they were living in a new world and everything would be different now, better.   
  
But instead they were reading about the Death Eaters' trials under the tables and avoided talking about the future after school. Everyone was mourning dead friends and fighting with those who were alive. Most of them couldn't concentrate on any book and couldn't sit still for longer than ten minutes.  
  
They got to have Quidditch back, though. Brad felt it was surreal, somehow, to play again on Hogwarts' ground, but fuck, he had never realized how much he missed it. He’d played a little during the summer, but it wasn't the same, so he mostly stuck to flying alone. His mother was going crazy, but she knew him well. She let it be.  
  
Now there were Quidditch try-outs and practice, and a structure for this, a purpose. A purpose that didn't have anybody dying over it. Always a bonus.  
  
He was checking for his wand every ten minutes anyway. Just in case.  
  
“Stop groping yourself,” Poke flied by and stopped a few feet to Brad's left. “Can't find the goods? Don't worry, you are still a growing boy.”  
  
Over six feet tall already and towering over most of people, Brad snorted. “I'm good. But you probably need to keep telling yourself that to sleep at night.”  
  
He sent the quaffle back to Rudy harder than before and nodded with satisfaction when Rudy scrambled for it.  
  
He heard Ginny's laughter and turned in that direction. She grinned at him and showed him thumbs up. He grinned back.  
  
“Stop flirting when Nate can see you. That's not cool, bro.” Poke shook his head.  
  
“What the fuck?” Brad asked, eyebrows rising. “First of all, it's not your fucking business who I flirt with. Second of all,” he said a little louder to stop Poke from cutting in, “Ginny has a boyfriend, you might have heard of him. Third of all, what does it have to do with Nate, I can't fathom. And no, please, don't enlighten me, I don't want to know. And finally, coming back to the main point, none of this is your fucking business.”  
  
Poke shrugged. “Whatever you say. You want to act like a moron, be my guest,” he said and flied away to where Gina were putting the snitch back in its cage.  
  
Brad felt like hitting something, even if his arms burned, only just getting used to practicing with quaffles again. The rush he felt moments ago was gone and he was just really tired.  
  
Of course that's when Nate appeared in front of him, his cheeks red, sweaty hair sticking to his forehead. “Damn. I didn't realize how much I missed it.”  
  
Brad felt like he was hit with a bludger all of a sudden.  
  
“Yeah. Yeah, me too,” he said, and Nate must have noticed something, because his smile disappeared. Brad wasn't feeling like talking, though. “I have to go. See you later.”  
  
  
#  
  
  
There was a fire in the Gryffindor Common Room, and the students were screaming for help and trying to get out, but the entrance would not open. The Fat Lady was nowhere to be found and the frame of the abandoned painting was starting to catch fire. All of them were trapped. Brad stood at the top of the stairs and looked down on the scene, unable to move. Ray ran past him, shouldering him, and joined Rudy and Olive, who were trying to stop the flames next to their only way out. Brad started to choke on the smoke, coughed once, twice, and again. He wanted to drop to his knees, _less smoke there_ , he remembered, but Nate appeared next to him and he wasn't choking at all. He just looked at Brad, accusation visible but not explained, and Brad wanted to ask, he opened his mouth to do so, but the smoke was suddenly everywhere and he turned around just to see the fireplace explode, sending those close to it into the air and onto the floor.  
  
His legs jerked as if he were falling and he opened his eyes to the darkness. His heart was pounding and it took him five long seconds to realize he was in his own bed, safe and sound. And drenched in sweat. He laid on his back and tried to calm himself, focusing on the sound of Ray's soft snores and breathing deeply. He felt his t-shirt clinging to his skin and gluing him to the bed, so he got up and took the shirt off before going barefoot to the open window. He looked down to see the castle and the grounds, and it turned out to be a horrible idea. The flashes of the battle kept coming up like fireworks before his eyes and he had to grab the windowsill to keep standing.  
  
He had to get out. Out _outout_.  
  
He stumbled through the door and leaned against the wall, counting to one hundred. He didn't see the Common Room from where he stood, but he could see soft light coming from there. And he imagined it to be warm, warm on his skin, so he moved towards it. He came into the snoop of light at the top of the stairs and looked down to see the room (there was no fire, no flames, no screaming). There was only one person there and of course it was Nate. Nate who was trying to hide the book he was reading by putting it under him, and looking up at the same time, shifting under his afghan.  
  
“Hey,” he said, flushed from the fire or embarrassment, or both, and Brad's stomach clenched a little.  
  
“Couldn't sleep?” Brad asked and winced. Smooth. And observant.  
  
If Nate noticed his expression, he didn't mention it. He nodded, tugging his legs in and making room on the couch he was sitting on. Brad couldn't exactly go for the armchair now, so he sat on the opposite side of the couch, facing Nate and making sure they weren't touching, hopefully in a subtle way.  
  
Fuck, where did this all go so stupid and awkward between them? Brad would like to go back and punch that moment in the face.  
  
“Yes,” Nate answered, bringing Brad back. “Still on an adrenaline high after practice, apparently,” he explained, showing his self-deprecating smile. “Also, I'm so fucking sore.”  
  
Brad was not going there. He was not going there. Just not. Going. There.  
  
“It was fun, though, right?” Nate added and looked at him with raised eyebrows. Brad realized he was silent for too long.  
  
“It was fantastic,” he agreed, showing teeth. “I feel every muscle group in my body going on strike, but it will pass. It always does.”  
  
“Yes, it does.”  
  
Something in Nate's voice made Brad suddenly remember how things went on after practice. How things had been going on between them since long before that, too.  
  
“What are you working on?” he asked, ignoring the rest. “And don't tell me it's nothing. I saw those books you tried to hide when I came in.”  
  
It was Nate's turn to wince. He ran his hand up and down his face.  
  
“It's nothing, I just... I was checking up on some things for the next Army's training and I've heard someone coming, so I reacted as I always did before.”  
  
Last year and even earlier than that. Dumbledore's Army was always a secret and even if it was a secret everyone knew about, the stakes were too high and the risk too grand to ever make it public.  
  
Some of the teachers knew, obviously. They saw what happened during the Battle. But the secrecy was still going to be kept, even now when the war was officially over. Old habits and all that.  
  
“It's two in the morning, Nate,” Brad chose to say instead.  
  
“I know. But I couldn't sleep, remember? Decided to do something useful.”  
  
And it felt like they were back, for a moment. The same old phrases, the same old responses. Knowing the other wouldn't change his mind, but be willing to say their lines anyway.  
  
Sometimes it felt like they were having the same conversations over and over again.   
  
“Just like old times, right?” Nate asked quietly and smiled, uncertain, as if Brad would snap or ignore Nate's attempts.   
  
“Only better,” he responded with his standard line that at one time broke them into almost hysterical laughter. It was the middle of March, the war was long past being something new, and the thought of it being better than the past was... well, laughable.  
  
Now it was different. The world actually was a little better. The problem was that they weren't, yet. At least not by much.  
  
“Brad, listen...” Nate started and stopped, shaking his head.  
  
And there they were, suddenly, on the brink of something, of the conversation Brad was unable to handle right now.  
  
“I'm sorry about the practice,” he found himself saying. Changing the topic, but not really. Nate looked at him for a moment, his hand gripping the cushion next to his knee, before he nodded.  
  
“It's fine.” Because it wasn't okay and Nate never pretended like that. He could bullshit his way out of almost anything, he perfected that art over the years, but somehow he drew a line on something being or not being okay.  
  
But it was fine, and fine was enough for now. Definitely enough for Brad, whose headache seemed to go away, leaving behind persistent need of sleep.  
  
“Are you going to bed?” he asked, standing up.  
  
Nate smiled at that, his shoulders relaxing just a fraction. “Yes, dear.”  
  
They climbed the stairs together and slipped into the bedroom without waking anybody. Nate's hand found Brad's elbow in the darkness and gripped it lightly.  
  
“Good night, Brad,” he whispered before letting go.  
  
“Good night, Nate,” Brad whispered back.  
  
It was fine.  
  
  
#  
  
  
“I say we get drunk,” Ray suggested with a grin the second they left the castle. He pulled Walt closer and kept their hands together. Brad refrained from rolling his eyes.  
  
“I say you are an idiot,” Poke said from behind them.  
  
“Ten points to Poke,” Brad said to that, “and zero to Ray. Only because you're in my house and I don't want us to lose because of you. Any more,” he added with a smirk.  
  
“Fuck you, Brad!”  
  
“Don't go breaking my heart just because you want some Iceman action, Ray,” Walt said, trying to keep a serious face and failing miserably.  
  
“I don't blame him,” Brad said with an understanding nod, “but I wouldn't be able to live with myself after that. Probably literally.”  
  
“Nate!” Ray shouted, “Nate, where are you? Where is our fearless leader, our prefect, our Boy of Great Head...”  
  
“Ray, I swear on my wand, I will kick your ass the next time you call me that.”  
  
They turned to see Nate coming up to them.  
  
“You wound me,” Ray announced, but threw himself – and Walt, because he still wouldn't let him go – at Nate with a spastic sort of hug.  
  
“I would,” Nate affirmed, dislodging Ray from himself with a tap on the back of his head. “Listen,” he turned to the rest of them, “I spoke to Ginny and she said she was going to Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes to help George. I volunteered us, too.” He shrugged. “But we don't have to all go there if you made other plans.”  
  
“Of course we will go,” Gina said, tucked under Poke's arm and smiling at Nate.  
  
Everybody else nodded and turned left for the shortcut to the east part of Hogsmeade.  
  
“I didn't know he decided to re-open it,” Brad said with a question in his tone.  
  
“Not yet. Ginny said they just got him to go there again.”  
  
Brad nodded. _He_ felt a bit of dread going there, he couldn't imagine what George was going through. Fred's death was hard for everybody who knew him, even in passing. He became one of the symbols of the war, of what it took from them. But even if he didn't, Brad had a burning memory of the Weasley family mourning around his body, in the middle of the Great Hall, surrounded by others, dead and grieving, but somehow drawing the most painful picture. And George was there, in the middle of it, kneeling by Fred's side, and saying things that were impossible to be heard from the distance. Staring like if he’d looked at him long enough, Fred would’ve opened his eyes.  
  
Brad hadn't seen George since the funeral and he hadn’t been inside the shop for almost a year. Suddenly Ray's idea of getting drunk started to sound more attractive.  
  
Maybe he should...  
  
But they were already there.  
  
From the street it looked the same way it looked last year – the curtain in red and yellow stripes covering up the window and the sign on the door that originally read “We're out having FUN” that had been long ago changed by someone to “We're out having WAR”. No one had taken it off even now.  
  
Nate knocked four times, loudly, before trying the doorknob. The door was open, so they all went in, Nate, Ray, Walt, Brad, Poke, and Gina, and quickly shut it behind them not to attract attention from other students.  
  
The room was brightly lit, but that actually made it worse. There were boxes everywhere, opened and sealed, some of them half filled, some of them on the carpet, spilling gadgets on the floor. Someone had to use the cleaning spell, because there was no trace of dust, but somehow it still looked abandoned and lifeless.  
  
Ginny came in from the second room, her eyes red but her smile grateful.  
  
“Thank you all for coming,” she said, looking around the room rather than at them. “It means a lot.”  
  
Gina came closer and gave her a hug.  
  
“Of course,” she said simply, just like before.  
  
Walt nodded. “Ray needs all the workout he can get.”  
  
“Hey!” Ray elbowed him, but everyone smiled at that and breathed a little easier.  
  
That is, until they saw George.  
  
“Hi, guys,” he said, leaning on the counter. He looked like he hadn't slept in weeks and hadn't eaten in months. Like the idea of walking, or standing, was too hard to comprehend.  
  
“Yo, George, my beautiful brother from a different mother!” Ray shouted and came closer to hug him.  
  
Brad heard the whole group, himself included, hold their breath.  
  
George widened his eyes for a moment and then hung his head, shaking it. _That's it_ , Brad thought. _The B-word has been used_.  
  
Before Ray reached the counter, George lifted his head and he was snorting.  
  
“My mother would never bring someone like you into this world. She actually likes it.”  
  
Ray threw his arms around George's neck and hugged him tightly. “You're just jealous. That's understandable.”  
  
“You're the one who called me beautiful.”  
  
“I always thought you were hot,” Ray said, before turning to look at the group. “That is, of course, until I saw Walt.”  
  
“Touching,” Walt muttered, but Brad could see that he was biting his lower lip. Walt had this weird condition where he actually found Ray more adorable than annoying.  
  
“And more age-appropriate,” George pointed out, still smiling and visibly surprised by it.  
  
“You're not that old,” Ray said to that, patting him on the head before taking a step back and turning around. “But we can be, before we're done here, so let's get to it. Point me in the right direction and use me however you want.”  
  
“Promises, promises,” George said but then he turned serious. “But you're right, let's get to it.”  
  
So they did.   
  
They worked for almost three hours before George called if off. “You came to Hogsmeade to have fun, not to clean. Go have fun.”  
  
They protested, of course, but George was part of a big family with years of experience in getting his way. He sent them out, giving each of them a different item from the shop.  
  
Before, they were planning to go to all the usual places, like Honeydukes Sweetshop or Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop, that had been finally re-opened. Brad was craving the cinnamon rolls for months now (he tried the Muggle ones one time, but he ended up throwing them out; they just weren't the same), and he knew Nate needed his chocolate fix like he needed his books – badly and often.  
  
But after leaving George's shop, they went straight to The Three Broomsticks and ordered a pitcher of butterbeer. The noises around them seemed to be almost deafening for Brad and he rubbed his right ear, fruitlessly trying to somehow shield it from the incessant waves of sound.  
  
Suddenly he felt a warm hand closing on his thigh and the pressure in his head seemed to be immediately a little less... all-consuming. Nate's fingers tightened for a moment before just resting there on his leg, giving off warmth through Brad's chilled jeans.  
  
He didn't turn to him, he couldn't. He just quietly inhaled and exhaled, once, and twice, and one more time. It felt as if everyone in the room quieted down a little.  
  
“Anyone else feels like we actually got lucky in this whole mess?” Walt asked, looking at the table instead of them.  
  
“Yeah,” Ray said, throwing his arm around Walt's shoulders and sliding closer.  
  
Brad nodded and he could see Nate and Gina doing the same. Poke looked like he was going to say something, but he just kept staring at Gina before nodding too.  
  
There was probably no one in the magic community who hadn't known someone who died during the war, but no one in the group lost a member of close family or a close friend.  
  
The standards of what was considered a good situation were near an all-time low, Brad suspected.  
  
  
#  
  
  
He told himself for the fiftieth time that he was not expecting anything but a great view when he was climbing the last steps to the top of the Astronomy Tower, but the hot burn of disappointment he felt when he stepped onto the empty balcony rendered this and other forty nine times to be utter lies.  
  
The view was indeed spectacular, though. The light coming out from the castle made the Hogwarts' grounds partially visible even at this time of night. Brad looked out towards the Forbidden Forest and didn't think about the last year's fires at all.  
  
The sound of the door opening startled him, but he didn't turn around.  
  
“We didn't do this for far too long,” Nate said, leaning on the railing right next to Brad.  
  
“We didn't do many things for far too long,” Brad wanted to say and found himself actually speaking those words out loud almost without thought. Because if he would stop to think about it, they would stay unspoken and buried, preferably forever.  
  
“You’re right, we didn't.”  
  
They stood in silence for a minute. Two. Three.  
  
“Are we friends?” Nate asked and Brad turned to face him. “Are we... We had sex, sort of, it depends on... Never mind. We had sex and then we almost stopped talking and that was fucked up. Now it's sort of better, but not by much and I want to know. Are we friends and that's it? Are we friends who are having sex? Or are we not even friends anymore? Are we...” Brad kissed him before he could finish.  
  
“I don't know,” he said with his lips touching Nate's, because he couldn't move away now, not now. He kissed him again, pushed his tongue into Nate's mouth and pulled him closer with the hand on the nape of his neck.  
  
“Fine,” Nate whispered back, his fingers clasped on Brad's hips. They both moved so that Brad was crowding Nate against the wall and pushing as if Nate was supposed to melt into it or into Brad. “That's fine.”  
  
And Brad had been wrong before, Nate was a bad liar, probably the worst liar Brad knew, but he didn't care now, because he missed this, even if he actually did have this just once. He missed everything they were before that, everything they could become then. He didn't know what choices they had left now, if any at all. If there was a way to not be distant and wary, and careful, because they were never that, not ever, not before the Battle.  
  
So they kissed and kissed, hands seeking warm skin under sweaters and t-shirts, hips aligned so that they were rubbing off of each other. It was not fast or desperate, not like the last time. There was no mortal danger, no fires going around them or screams heard through the walls.  
  
And Brad was torn between wanting this to be their first time, this slow, focused on one another make out session leading to an orgasm pretty fast anyway, and between never giving back that time during the Battle. The fast, rushed, we're-probably-going-to-die-tonight-please-don't-die exchange of handjobs and bite marks, and kisses. But it didn't matter now anyway. He got to have Nate under his hands again.  
  
Nate came with a quiet gasp and _Brad, Brad_ whispered into his collarbone before his teeth closed on his skin. And then Brad was done, shuddering and falling harder onto Nate's body, with his nose next to his ear and swallowed words to be left unspoken.   
  
Neither of them spoke for a few minutes, unwilling to break the silence or to widen the space between them again. Nate put his chin on Brad's shoulder and breathed deeply; the only proof that he wasn't asleep was that his fingers were still underneath Brad's t-shirt, drawing patterns on the sweaty skin of his back. Brad was inhaling him with every deep breath, while the tips of his fingers were running along the edges of Nate's jeans.  
  
“I missed you,” Nate said, finally, because he was always the braver one.  
  
  
#  
  
  
And if Brad would be inclined to think that would resolve all the issues, he would be sorely disappointed now. But since his view of the world was realistic at best, he knew better than to hope for such things.  
  
It was better, for sure, a little easier to be around each other, and talk, and touch. A little easier to reenact their usual play of doing things. But there were also times when Brad found himself suddenly craving Nate's skin under his hands or lips so badly he had to almost constantly keep his hands in his pockets, so he wouldn't just reach out and take, and _take_.  
  
 _It will pass_ , he told himself and he wasn't wrong, exactly. He was already feeling a little better, more deserving of his fucking nickname. Not jumping out of his skin any time soon, or fantasizing about molesting Nate in the middle of the Common Room. Much.  
  
They went back to meeting at the Astronomy Tower, just like they had been doing for over three years. Mostly it was just the two of them, but occasionally they ended up sort of hosting little, eleventh-person-is-sent-the-fuck-away parties on the top of the world (Ray's idea of a great name, of course; Brad was able to at least veto the capital letters).  
  
“Some time during the fourth year,” Nate started speaking the moment Brad appeared in the doorway one day when it was just the two of them, “I became scared that there would come a day when I could look at this view and not be affected by it.”  
  
“Was there ever a day like that?” Brad asked, leaning on the railing and looking around. There was no such day for him, _that_ he was certain of.  
  
Nate shook his head. “I'm starting to believe it will probably never come.”  
  
“That's good.”  
  
“I have to say, Voldemort knew where to attack,” Nate said after a minute. “If Hogwarts would fall...”  
  
“It didn't.” Brad turned to Nate and put his hand on his neck, making him turn too. He looked him in the eyes. “It didn't,” he repeated.  
  
“I know that,” Nate said, tilting his head, so that he could kiss Brad's wrist. “We would all be dead, if it did, anyway.”  
  
“Yeah,” Brad breathed out, trying to get his heart under control. His blood was pulsing like it wanted to burst out of his veins.  
  
Nate laughed suddenly, with his eyes bright and his head thrown back, accidentally dislodging Brad's hand. Brad let it drop to his waist instead, because he couldn't make himself break contact completely.  
  
“What?” he asked, lips twitching. Nate's laughter always did that to him.  
  
“I just remembered our first time,” Nate gasped, still laughing. Brad tightened his grip in response without thinking, which made Nate stop and smirk at him, before he went back to just amused. “First time seeing Hogwarts, you idiot.”  
  
Brad shrugged, smirking as well. “Hey, you didn't specify.”  
  
“And you went straight to sex.”  
  
“I'm seventeen years old. I'm not ashamed to admit that a part of me is thinking about sex _constantly_.” _Especially when you're around._  
  
Nate's fingers twitched at the small of his back. And when did they get there? They were basically in each other's arms and the question should be how he was able to think about anything _other_ than sex.  
  
“Okay, I will shoot. What about our first time?”  
  
Nate shrugged, still smiling. “Ray's crazy stories, which, by the way, made this little guy from a family of non-wizards slightly petrified,” he started, pointing at himself. “Poke almost landing in the lake...”  
  
“He told me later that it was the first time he saw Gina.”  
  
Nate scrunched his nose. “They are seriously too adorable to exist. I shouldn't even use the world 'adorable', but they're forcing me to.”  
  
“Poor you.”  
  
Nate pinched him hard. “I also remember this ridiculously tall, silent boy who helped me with my bags.”  
  
“You were a midget back then, that's all.”  
  
“I was a _normal-sized_ eleven-year-old.”  
  
“Normal for midgets, sure. At least you grew up out of that. You still can't pack, though.”  
  
“You're destroying my precious childhood memories, just so you know,” Nate told him, trying for serious and failing completely.  
  
Brad suddenly felt hot. He wanted... everything. This, and more, since he knew now there was 'more' he was allowed to have. He didn't know how to get it, though. Or how to keep it. How to make sure it wasn't going to break them again.  
  
He stepped back, letting go. “Speaking of children,” he said, looking at the door, “aren't you supposed to make some rounds to catch those sneaking up little monsters?”  
  
Nate frowned, showing his hands in his pockets. “Yes. Yes, I do, of course. I should go.”  
  
Brad nodded. “I'm going to stay here a little longer.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“Okay. Goodnight, Nate.”  
  
Nate stood there for a second before leaning in for a quick kiss. He moved away as quickly.  
  
“Night, Brad.”  
  
  
#  
  
  
It was bound to happen sooner or later. Actually, to be honest, Brad was kind of expecting it to happen earlier than it actually did.  
  
Because someone had to break at some point. Every student from the second year up was here last year and they all remembered.  
  
They got used to hearing screams at night.  
  
They got used to the wary looks and tired eyes, and smiles that came a few seconds too late.  
  
They got used to not doing anything in the dark, just in case.  
  
They got used to trying to avoid sudden movements and surprising tackles.  
  
Friends intervened when they noticed bottles or suspicious pills.  
  
Or split lips and bruises. Or scars.  
  
They were trying their best, both at dealing with their own shit and at taking care of others.  
  
They couldn't help everyone, though.  
  
Mike Rivers, a third-year from Ravenclaw, went home after he kept refusing to leave his dormitory for anything.  
  
Two weeks later, Ramona Smithson from Gryffindor's fifth year was sent away after pulling her wand at Professor McGonagall.  
  
The rest of them just kept going.  
  
Dumbledore's Army helped, that's for sure. Going to the meetings gave Brad a feeling of being understood and these days he didn't get it too often. He felt on the outside of pretty much everything.  
  
On the wall there was a list of names of DA’s members who died during the Battle (Samantha Perkins, Trevor McKinley, Laura Banks, Ted Stevens, Mike Atwood, Cassidy Johnson, and Phillip Willow; Brad felt the need to list them all in his head sometimes). There was also a second list, open to be filled whenever anyone wanted or needed to add to it, for fallen friends and family members. Fred Weasley was at the top of that one, and Brad had seen Ginny's eyes locked on it sometimes, before something or someone distracted her.  
  
Their numbers grew, probably doubled up before the end of November. It was weird at first, but they got used to the new faces. There was no way they would tell someone no. Everyone wanted the same thing, after all.  
  
They shifted, though. The core members became some sort of mentors to the new ones, teaching them what they had covered for the last year and a half. It slowed down the whole learning process, but in the end they knew it wasn't about learning new things for them anymore.  
  
Brad was fortunate enough to not get a complete moron. Shonda was smart and capable, learning quickly, even if she did stumble on some spells.  
  
“Fuck, not again,” she groaned as her spell bounced off the wall and took a chunk of brick with it. She quickly fixed the damage and tried again, this time doing it right and Brad nodded with approval.  
  
“Have I earned a smile?” she asked, raising her brows at him.  
  
“I don't know, ask that wall.”  
  
“Ouch,” she said, dramatically placing a hand over her heart. “So cruel.”  
  
“That's me,” he said, slightly amused. “And as a truly cruel person, I'm making you do it ten more times. Correctly. Leave the place alone, we need it.”  
  
She rolled her eyes, but went back to the exercise anyway. Brad was busy observing her, so it took him a minute to notice Ginny standing nearby.  
  
“Everything okay?” he asked.  
  
“Yes, everything's fine,” she said, coming closer. “Didn't want to interrupt. I just wanted to make sure Nate's okay.”  
  
“Nate?” Brad noticed, of course, that Nate wasn't there at the beginning, but he assumed he was just running late.  
  
“He's not here,” Ginny said, shaking her head when he was looking around. “He asked Walt to let me know he wasn't going to show today. And it's fine, obviously,” she shrugged, “I'm just worried. It's kind of my thing now, worrying.”  
  
Brad nodded.  
  
“It's probably fine,” he said, to her and to himself. “Maybe he's just tired. I don't think he's stopped doing anything even once since we got back.”  
  
“I've noticed.”  
  
Ginny and Brad dated for awhile in their fifth year. It was something that, to an outside observer, might have looked like a perfect match. But they knew better, agreed that it was a good thing they tried, but it wasn't ever going to lead anywhere. Brad had never looked back and he was sure Ginny didn't either. And while they never became close friends, they always understood each other really well. Too well, maybe.  
  
Somehow she ended up being friends with Nate, instead. Brad had problems understanding that, but right now he felt fucking good about it.  
  
“Are you working with anyone right now?” he asked. She shook her head. “Would you mind taking care of Shonda for me? I would... go. And check. To make sure everything's fine.”  
  
“Of course,” she smiled, like she expected it. “Let me know if I can help.”  
  
“Sure,” he said, but he wasn't really listening anymore. After saying goodbye to Shonda, he scanned the room for Walt. He located him near the windows. It looked like there was smoke coming from his partner's wand.  
  
“Is it safe?” he asked, curiously tilting his head.  
  
“No,” Walt answered before addressing the guy, fellow Hufflepuff from the looks of it. “Try again.”  
  
“Where did you see Nate, Walt? Ginny said he talked to you.”  
  
“Where else could it be? In the library. I swear, even the entire Ravenclaw isn’t spending as much time in there as he is.”  
  
“He has missed the meeting so he could study?” Brad asked incredulously. Even for Nate, that was extreme. They had a lot of time until the exams and teachers seemed to take it easy on them lately.  
  
“Make him eat something, Brad,” Walt said, crossing his arms and shaking his head at the Hufflepuff.  
  
Brad was going to force Nate to go to dinner if he had to.  
  
He found him at the far end of the library, with three books open before him and another two waiting on the chair next to him. Brad lifted the two, so he could sit down. “Hi.”  
  
“Hi, Brad,” Nate said, distracted. “Is everything okay?” he asked, not looking up from the paper.  
  
“You tell me.”  
  
“Huh?” he lifted his head, his brows furrowed and his mouth opened. “Oh. The meeting. Yeah, I needed to get this done.”  
  
“Homework?”  
  
“Yes,” Nate bit his lower lip. “I forgot.”  
  
“You forgot?” Brad was trying not to sound so surprised, but it was unusual, to say the least. Nate Fick did not forget his homework, ever.  
  
“Yes, Brad,” Nate said, his voice sharp. He winced a second later. “I'm sorry. It's obviously not your fault and I'm taking it out on you. I forgot to write the essay for Professor Lipkin. I need to do this now.”  
  
Brad rapped his fingers on the books he was holding. “Okay. We have an hour before dinner, I will wait.”  
  
“No, it doesn't make sense. You don't...”  
  
Brad shushed him. “Be quiet and keep writing. You have an hour.”  
  
And Brad was going to make sure that was it.  
  
  
#  
  
  
Holiday break caught Brad by surprise every year. He was looking forward to it since the middle of November and then suddenly it was a week before, or three days before, and he forgot to buy presents again.  
  
He wasn't going home during the break, though, so at least he still had a chance to buy something in Hogsmeade before meeting his parents there on twenty eighth for Hanukkah dinner.   
  
He was walking through the empty hallway, debating what kind of book his mother would enjoy the most, so he didn't see Professor McGonagall coming from his left until he was stopped by her hand on his shoulder.  
  
“Careful, Mr Colbert.”  
  
“I'm sorry, Proffesor. I didn't see you.”  
  
She tilted her head, looking at him. “I was surprised to learn that you are staying here during the break. Not counting last year, you've never did before.”  
  
Last year almost everyone stayed in. That was when people still believed Hogwarts was the safest place for them to be.  
  
This year there were maybe twenty of them, and less than a half was staying by choice.  
  
“Seemed like the best option, Ma’am. Some of my friends are staying, too.” And it was their last chance to do so.  
  
She nodded. “I understand. I always loved spending winter holidays here,” she smiled a little, Brad thought but wasn't sure. It was difficult to say with her, sometimes.  
  
He smiled back just in case.  
  
“Since we're meeting, I wanted to congratulate you on your last Transfiguration essay.”  
  
He looked at her in surprise.  
  
“I hope you're considering your future in this field, Colbert. You could accomplish great things.”  
  
“I... Thank you. That... means a lot.”  
  
He had no idea about his future in any field, at this point, but it was still damn good to hear. Transfiguration was his favorite class, after all.  
  
She nodded again and left him standing there, looking at her back before she disappeared in the dark corridor. She was looking better, like the rest of them were. Last year, she was almost invisible, tired and looking older than ever, avoiding Professor Snape as much as she could. Now, she was their Headmistress and she stepped up to the task, with her head held high and her strong voice that left no room for argument.  
  
Brad smiled, continuing his walk back to his bedroom.  
  
  
#  
  
  
Eating in the almost empty Great Hall was weird. Brad stopped having flashbacks about dead bodies lying on the floor every other week after about a month and a half, but he felt... uneven tonight, with so much empty space. Sitting with his back to the most of the room didn't help either. He kept shifting and turning around.  
  
Nate leaned in towards Brad. “What's going on?” he asked, frowning. “There's no one else coming.”  
  
“I'm not waiting for anybody. I'm just not... comfortable. With the empty space. Behind me.”  
  
Nate nodded, turning away to stare at his potatoes swimming in gravy. “I get it. It's weird without all these people, right? I feel like the room is three times bigger than normal.”  
  
“At least there are no bodies,” Brad murmured, half a second later hoping Nate didn't hear anything.  
  
Judging from the way he did a double-take at the empty room behind them, it was unlikely.  
  
“Are you still having flashbacks?” Nate asked quietly, so the others wouldn't hear. Brad didn't even stop to wonder how he knew. He learned a long time ago that Nate was probably the most observant person he'd ever known.  
  
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It doesn't mean I don't remember, though.”  
  
“I don't think we're going to forget it any time soon.”  
  
And Brad saw this as an acknowledgment of many different things, but one of them was that simple understanding that it was going to take time. That it was okay not to be in a perfect form yet.  
  
He let his shoulders relax a little bit and took a deep breath. “Probably not.”  
  
“I would pay money for all of those memories to go away.”  
  
Brad turned right and felt Nate moving closer behind him to see Lisa, who looked up at them and shrugged.  
  
“I wasn't eavesdropping. You're not exactly quiet and I don't have anybody to talk to.”  
  
She was one of two Ravenclaws who stayed in and the other one, Sylvia, was flirting with Maria from Hufflepuff on the other end of the table.  
  
“You can talk with us,” Nate offered with a smile Brad didn't even have to turn to know was there. “Or with me. Brad here is not all that great at conversations.”  
  
“I've noticed,” Lisa said, smirking a little.  
  
“Then you are both terribly misguided,” Brad told hem, rolling his fork between his fingers. “I'm great at conversations. When I feel like having them.”  
  
“Somehow I think you don’t feel that way very often,” Lisa said, raising her eyebrows at Nate as if seeking confirmation. She apparently got it, because she sat back with a winning smile.  
  
“I tend to avoid feelings in general.”  
  
“Unless it's irritation,” Nate said. “Or feeling murderous. Or helplessness in the face of overwhelming stupidity.”  
  
“It's not my fault that people are stupid. It's not like I enjoy those feelings.”  
  
“Liar.”  
  
Lisa laughed at them and didn't even try to hide it. The left side of Brad's mouth twitched.  
  
“Hey, we're planning on having... well, party would be stretching it, seeing like there's four of us Gryffindors, so a get-together in our Common Room later on,” Nate said, smiling. “You should come.”  
  
“Bring snacks,” Brad added. They were almost out. Again.  
  
“My mom sent me her cinnamon rolls. I'm willing to share.”  
  
“You should _definitely_ come, then.”  
  
  
*  
  
  
Somehow, two hours later they all ended up in Gryffindor's Common Room. Lisa brought Sylvia, who brought Maria, who brought the remaining four Hufflepuffs, including Walt. At that point Nate made a trip down to the dungeons and came back with nine Slytherins.  
  
Brad blamed it on Christmas. Holidays made people do weird things.  
  
But he wasn't complaining. People brought food. Someone brought alcohol, and Nate and Mia both left their Head Boy and Head Girl hats somewhere else and didn't say anything.  
  
Brad was kicking Mike's ass at chess and didn't really pay attention to what was happening in the room, other than looking up from time to time to see where Nate was.  
  
If he was still talking to Tina by the fireplace, that was.  
  
“Stop staring at him and make your move already,” Mike said, rolling his eyes.  
  
“My last move cost you your queen. It's your turn,” Brad pointed out, ignoring whatever Mike implied.  
  
Unfortunately, Mike was a stubborn guy. “Do you plan on taking your head out of your ass and actually get together with him?”  
  
“That conversation is ridiculous.”  
  
“You both are ridiculous. How many years have you been pining after one another already?”  
  
“And what are you, the ghost of Christmas past?” Brad asked, raising his brows.  
  
“I'm the get-your-shit-together-and-do-this-already voice of reason.”  
  
“Why exactly do I have to be the one to 'get my shit together'? Or is Nate getting the same lovely parental talk?”  
  
Mike looked at him, tilting his head to the left. “Are you sure he didn't? Or maybe you just didn't notice it?”  
  
“How the hell should I know if I didn't notice it?”  
  
“So let me tell you. From where I'm standing, it looks like he's making a move every other day. You... not so much.”  
  
Brad looked at him with narrowed eyes. He didn't think Mike was drunk, but the stuff coming out from his mouth was making a pretty strong case.  
  
“Are you standing on another planet, then?” he asked, sitting back. Brad won the game anyway, Mike had three pieces left. “Where it's dark?”  
  
Mike actually threw his hands in the air. “I honestly thought you would get your asses together last year.” _So he didn't know_ , Brad thought. That was good. Probably. “But you apparently only put your brave pants on when it's time to fight the bad guys.”  
  
Brad really didn't want to be reminded of the times he had to put his brave pants on last year. He felt his muscles tense and he tightened his grip on the arm of his armchair.  
  
“That's really not...”  
  
“Are you seriously still trying to win the chess game with Brad, Mike?” Nate asked with a crooked smile. “You should really let this go.”  
  
“I'm from Gryffindor, I don't let things go,” Mike said gravely before he smiled back. “Besides, when I play, _nobody_ tries to get me to socialize with strange people.”  
  
Nate wasn't phased by the implication. “You’ve known most of these people for over six years.”  
  
“Yes, that's why I can honestly tell you that I know they are strange.”  
  
“And Brad is normal?” Nate asked, raising his eyebrows and looking between them.  
  
“Brad is fucked in the head...”  
  
“Hey!”  
  
“...but that's one of his best qualities.”  
  
“I'm not sure if I should be flattered or offended right now,” Brad admitted with a dry smile.  
  
Nate laughed at that. “That's Mike's specialty.”  
  
“Well, I'm sitting here with you, aren't I?” Mike pointed out.  
  
“There's that,” Brad nodded. “But it can also be a form of torture.”  
  
“I guess you'll never know,” Mike deadpanned, standing up. “I'm going over there. And by there, I mean wherever the alcohol is.”  
  
Brad watched him go for a long moment, before he stood up as well and looked around the room. “I think I'll just go to bed early. Make that my holiday gift to myself.”  
  
“And abandon me to all this?” Nate waved his hand around.  
  
“You can go to bed, too.”  
  
Nate snorted.  
  
“Yeah, because us going up together won't start any rumors or anything.”  
  
“Well, Mike would pop open the champagne.”  
  
Nate winced. “Was he harassing you about this?” he asked, pointing between them.  
  
 _Yes_.  
  
“Not really.” He paused. “You?”  
  
“At least once a week. He may actually have that penciled in in his calendar or something.” It was Nate's time to roll his eyes, but he smiled softly at Brad. “Don't worry, I'm not going to harass you about this.”  
  
“Me neither,” Brad offers and pauses. “Should I?”  
  
“No. Not until you figure it out.”  
  
Brad had trouble believing this conversation was really happening. And since it happened the second time this evening, he should definitely go to bed. “It's on the list.”  
  
“Let me know when,” Nate said, taking a step back. It made Brad realize they not only were having this conversation, but it also was taking place in the Common Room. He took the step back, too.  
  
“Since I'm not as young as I used to be,” he said, making Nate crack a small smile, “I think it's time to sleep.”  
  
“Maybe not as young, but definitely as anti-social as ever,” Nate pointed out, but he was still smiling. “You did good, though. Bravely resisted for,” he looked at his watch, “over three hours. Impressive.”  
  
“I'm a real fighter,” Brad snorted.  
  
“Go to sleep, old man. It's presents time tomorrow.”  
  
“Hurrah.”  
  
He went back to their bedroom and kept thinking about Mike's words and Nate's behavior. He would certainly notice if Nate was indeed making moves on him all the time. Right?  
  
Nate acknowledged what was going on, or wasn't, and told him to take his time. It didn't feel like a move, more like stating the facts and awaiting an outcome.  
  
And if Mike was the Ghost of Christmas Past, was Nate the Ghost of Christmas Present? Did that make Brad his own Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?  
  
Well, he was definitely pessimistic enough.  
  
  
#  
  
  
Everybody came back for the New Year's Eve. The halls weren't silent anymore, the tables during dinner were full again, and everyone was talking about either their break, and the presents, and food, or about the party that was going to happen that night.  
  
“I'm going to ask Gina to marry me,” Poke said, definitely breaking the pattern. They were sitting in their bedroom, shooting shit before the party.  
  
“What?” Ray shrieked.  
  
“You heard me.”  
  
“I did, but I'm still hoping I _mis_ heard you,” Ray said, getting up to pace around the room. “You're seventeen!”  
  
“I'm eighteen in two months.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, you're seventeen and three quarters, whatever. Real mature.”  
  
“What Ray is unsuccessfully trying to say,” Nate broke in, sending Ray 'shut the hell up' look, which was apparently a magic weapon of some kind, because it actually worked, “is that although we are all sure you and Gina are a great couple and you will be that for years to come, it is really, really early to get married.”  
  
“We're not getting married tomorrow, for fuck's sake.”  
  
“You're still pretty young for an engagement,” Brad pointed out, leaning back on his bed.  
  
“I was pretty young for fighting a war, too. Let's see how that turned out.”  
  
There was a sudden silence in the room, mood shifting fast.  
  
“Last year before the Battle I promised myself,” Poke said after a moment, looking at them one by one, “that if we survive that fight, I'm going to propose on the next New Year's Eve.”  
  
That made an impression. Brad noticed in a detached way that Poke played the one card that pretty much ended all discussions.  
  
“Shut up and show us the ring already, geez,” Ray said, hovering above Poke suddenly.  
  
Brad avoided looking at Nate until it was time to leave for the party.  
  
  
#  
  
  
He was going to have to kill himself over this music. Two and a half hours of this and he had never wanted to use Silencio so much in his life. The fact that the entire school was gathered in one big room didn't help either. He tried hiding, but it was kind of counterproductive. He could still hear the damn whining coming from the speakers, and avoiding conversations meant there wasn't anything to drown it out.  
  
“Have you seen Nate?” he asked, coming up to Ray, when he located him finally near the cake.  
  
“He left, like, thirty minutes ago. Where were you?”  
  
Trying to escape Laura Ripkin. And Molly Stark. And Luc Stark.  
  
“Around. Getting bored out of my mind.” He paused and then furrowed his brows. “Wait, Nate left here alone?”  
  
Ray rolled his eyes.  
  
“No, he took that tall, blue-eyed blond he'd been lusting after forever back to our room. Oh, wait.”  
  
Brad decided, _again_ , that there was no greatest accomplishment in self-control than being friends with Ray Person and not killing him for over six years.  
  
“Fuck you, Ray.”  
  
“Sorry, bros before... bros,” he shrugged. “Anyway. You and me, not happening. You and Nate, not happening either, that's true, but not because of the lack of wanting on either side. I actually honestly have no idea why you are still not fucking, seriously, how many years a girl should wait for you? And by girl I mean Nate. And that was very sexist of me, I retract that comment. That was probably also a little heteronor...”  
  
“Shut up, Ray.”  
  
“Yes, thank you, that's probably a good idea. Go find Nate. I will go... somewhere else. Maybe I will drown myself in that punch. It looks radioactive enough.”  
  
Brad decided he had enough. He turned around, but Ray caught him by the wrist. “If you don't kiss him at midnight, you are not only an idiot, Brad,” he said, quieter and without a smile. “You're a coward, too.”  
  
And with that, he disappeared into the crowd. After a minute of staring after him and two minutes of trying to push through the mass of the entire population of Hogwarts trying to grind into each other or anything at all, Brad left the Great Hall behind.  
  
The corridors weren't deserted, not by a long shot, students had to have their make out sessions somewhere, after all, but it was still much more quiet than the pulsing noise of the party.  
  
He wondered sometimes what they would be like if they knew he and Nate actually hooked up already. More than once, even. Would they let it go? _Unlikely_ , he decided. They would probably make him pick an engagement ring at this point.  
  
He checked their room, just in case, before going up the stairs to the Astronomy Tower.  
  
Nate was sitting cross-legged, leaning against the wall, having the perfect view of the stars.  
  
“How the hell is this place not swamped with horny teenagers?” Brad wondered, sitting next to Nate and stretching his legs with a quiet groan. “Not that I'm complaining.”  
  
Nate smirked at him with his eyebrows raised. “I'm not the Head Boy for nothing, Brad.”  
  
Brad threw his head back with laughter. “You cock-blocking piece of shit.”  
  
“I prefer to call it enjoying the perks of the job,” Nate said with a shrug and a smile.  
  
“Well, apparently it's all the same to you.”  
  
They sat in silence after that, looking up at the stars.  
  
“You didn't enjoy the party?” Brad half-said, half-asked quietly without taking his eyes off the sky.  
  
“I did, at first. But then I didn't, so I left.”  
  
Talking with Nate was sometimes like pulling teeth. And Brad knew he wasn't a great example of a conversationalist himself, but everybody knew that. Nate was different. Which made Brad's life difficult when Nate was like this, because he wasn't good at getting anybody to talk.  
  
“Did something...”  
  
“Nothing happened,” Nate said, his shoulders slumped. “I kind of wish it did.” He paused for a moment. “Well, no, obviously I don't. I'm just tired of reacting badly to things that aren't there. Nothing happened. I should be fine and downstairs, having fun.”  
  
“You should allow yourself to have bad days,” Brad said, like the hypocrite he was, and looked at Nate who was picking at his lower lip with his teeth. “Everybody has them.”  
  
Nate shrugged. “We are all screwed, then,” he said dryly, and then he started to laugh, loud and hard, with his head thrown back and shoulders shaking.  
  
Brad looked at him for a few seconds, but then he felt his own laughter building inside him and it poured out of him as well. They had to look like lunatics, laughing so hard Brad's stomach was starting to hurt. But it was so _good_ , too, and Brad didn't want it to end.  
  
It did, after a while, obviously. They were sprawled against the wall and each other, breathing loudly.  
  
Nate checked his watch and they both could see it was a minute to midnight. Nate lifted his head from Brad's shoulder and looked him in the eye before looking at his lips. He kissed him then, leaned up and kissed him, soft and warm. Brad opened his mouth and let him in. He pulled at Nate's arm, so he would straddle Brad's lap, and they kissed and kissed, and kissed. Nate was running his fingers through Brad's hair at the nape of his neck and Brad's hands were under Nate's shirt, pulling him closer.  
  
The first fireworks startled them both and made them pull away, but when they saw it was nothing bad, Nate whined into Brad's mouth and came back to kissing him.  
  
“Happy New Year,” Brad whispered with his face buried in Nate's neck, his lips touching skin.  
  
“May it be the best one yet,” Nate whispered back with a smile in his voice and bit his ear.  
  
  
#


	2. Chapter 2

The news about Terry Grant traveled so fast that at lunch his death was the main, if not the only, topic of conversation at every table.  
  
Terry's sister, Mia, was the Head Girl and the Hufflepuff prefect, so her absence in the Great Hall was hard to miss. She left the school right after breakfast.  
  
“Come on, Nate,” Poke said, sitting in front of him. “Tell us what happened, because the rumors will soon state he was abducted by aliens and left by them as a warning for humans.”  
  
“And who would start a rumor like that, Poke?” Ray asked. “Seriously, stop watching those Muggle movies, they are giving you ideas.”  
  
“Fuck off, Person.”  
  
“It was what they say it was,” Nate started, staring at his plate before looking up at Poke. All conversations in the close vicinity fell silent, people turning their heads to hear better. Brad could feel Nate tense more. “He killed himself two nights ago. He poisoned himself.”  
  
Terry got _Outstanding_ on his Potions N.E.W.T. last year. It was not a mistake.  
  
“Do they know why?”  
  
Nate rubbed the corner of his eye. “Mia said he just couldn't deal any longer. We had talked about his problems before, he... He started using drugs, because he couldn't sleep. He had flashbacks a lot, got angry at stupid things. After New Year she told me he stopped leaving the house.”  
  
“Did they try to get him professional help?” Rudy asked.  
  
Nate nodded. “They tried, but he refused to go the second time. They tried family interventions, too, but,” he shrugged, “it didn't work.”  
  
“Every one of us has flashbacks,” Ray pointed out. “Half of the school has trouble sleeping, some get angry out of the blue. Should we be on suicide watch?”  
  
“Aren't we already?” Poke asked instead. “Teachers monitor us more than ever before. Their shifts on corridors doubled. Every Head of the House wants to meet us regularly.”  
  
Nate nodded. “The prefects were instructed to keep an eye on things, too.”  
  
“Is there a lot of...” Ray stopped and Nate sighed.  
  
“Define a lot.”  
  
Ray opened his mouth like he was actually going to define it for Nate. Brad slapped him in the back of his head. “He didn't mean it, you idiot. Let it go.”  
  
That earned him a grateful smile from Nate and a scowl from Ray.  
  
“I didn't mean it out of sick curiosity, okay?” Ray said, rubbing his head. “I'm allowed to be concerned.”  
  
The bell rang to let them know the classes were starting soon. They gathered up their things and rushed to the door.  
  
“You're right,” Nate said to Ray. “You're allowed to be concerned. I just don't have all the answers you'd like to hear.”  
  
Ray nodded. “I get it. I'm sorry if I pushed.”  
  
“You didn't. It's okay.”  
  
Brad was walking next to them, half-listening, but he was mostly busy being angry at Terry.  
  
Terry was there last year with them, at the front line of the fire. He wasn't in Dumbledore's Army, but he showed up with the rest of Ravenclaws when the Battle began. He probably saved Brad's life that night by Stupefying one of the Death Eaters who was coming at him from behind.  
  
And now he was dead, because he couldn't deal. Now he was dead, seven months after graduating Hogwarts and starting a new life. He was dead and they only just were getting better at it, at everything. Brad didn't have flashbacks for over two months now, he slept well and actually got some rest when he did. Everyone relaxed a little, taking the new year as a do-over. Cliched, maybe, but cliched for a reason.  
  
Less than a month into this bright and shiny new year, Terry Grant committed suicide.  
  
Apparently, he didn't get that memo.  
  
  
#  
  
  
The rest of the day wasn't really much better. Brad was irritated even more than usual and even Ray started to give him a wide berth. Which happened approximately twice a year.  
  
Brad caught Nate's elbow to keep them behind when the rest was leaving for dinner. “Meet me tonight.”  
  
Nate raised his eyebrows. It wasn't the way they were doing things. If they would even do anything more than making out.  
  
Which they were about to if Brad was getting his way.  
  
“Sure,” Nate said with a pleased smile. “I'll be at...”  
  
“Not the tower.” Brad's fingers tightened around Nate's skin. “Pick somewhere more private.”  
  
Nate's eyes widened for a moment, before he tilted his head to the left a little. “At ten in the prefects' bathroom.”  
  
Brad nodded and let him go. “At ten.”  
  
  
He was there seven minutes to ten. He wanted to hide behind the terrifying plant that looked like it planned to take over Hogwarts at some point ( _get in line_ , he thought before realizing he was addressing a plant), but in the end he couldn't keep still. He was trying to be as quiet as possible, but he was still pacing.  
  
Nate came dressed in shorts and with a towel hanging on his shoulder. Brad wanted to fuck him _yesterday_.  
  
Which he might have telegraphed to Nate somehow, because he wasn't wasting any time opening the door. Brad still crowded him from behind and as soon as the door closed, he pushed Nate against it.  
  
“Fuck, finally,” he breathed out on Nate's lips, before pushing in with his tongue. One of his hands tangled in Nate's hair, keeping him in place, and the other was already under Nate's t-shirt, blunt thumbnail making circles around Nate's belly button.  
  
Nate moaned and bucked his hips, his hands tightening on Brad's waist. His hard cock was straining his shorts and Brad didn't waste any time. He clasped his fingers around it and tugged, making Nate shudder and pull away his lips to catch a breath.  
  
“Brad,” he whispered, voice uneven. “Brad, fuck...”  
  
“It's only the first one,” Brad told his collarbone before biting it. “Just let it go.”  
  
Nate's head rolled back, leaving his neck exposed. Brad traced the line of it with his lips while his hand snuck into Nate's shorts and he clasped his fingers on Nate's cock, hot and heavy on his palm.  
  
Nate's fingernails were leaving marks on his sides, breaking skin. Brad just bit harder and jacked him off faster.  
  
Nate came with a moan muffled by Brad's mouth on his. A minute later he tugged at Brad's t-shirt.   
  
“Come on,” he said, still a little out of breath. “Off.”  
  
Brad lifted his arms, letting Nate do the work, and then he wiped his hand, still covered in Nate's come, on his stomach. Nate's nostrils flared.  
  
“There's a tub. Get naked.”  
  
They both did, really fast. Nate went ahead of him to quickly draw the bath and Brad was left to stare.  
  
Fuck, Nate was a work of art.  
  
“How can you be sure that nobody will come in?” He made himself focus on something else, and the tub looked like something anyone would have a hard time parting with.  
  
“We've made a chart,” Nate said dryly, but somehow Brad believed him. “And I switched with Ginny tonight.”  
  
Brad paused. “What did you say to her?”  
  
“Do you really want me to answer that?” Nate asked coming into the water and looking up at Brad. “Now?”  
  
“No, not really.”  
  
They were best at not talking about any of it, after all.  
  
He sat at the edge of the tub, ready to slide in, but Nate's hands on his thighs stopped him. Nate pushed his legs apart, coming between them, with the water up to his armpits. His lips were right in front of Brad's cock.  
  
He slowly lowered his head, eyes not leaving Brad's, and clasped the base of his cock in one hand. Brad was ready to come right then and there and that was before Nate's lips touched his skin. The moment he felt Nate's tongue on the head of his cock, he buckled his hips, almost choking Nate in the process and almost landing in the tub. Nate backed off for a second, but came back, each slide down going deeper and deeper. The moment Brad felt Nate's throat, he groaned, threw his head back and came.  
  
When the rush wore off, he look down again and saw Nate with his chin resting on Brad's thigh. He brushed his fingers through Nate's hair, playing with his ear, and then mapped out Nate's jawline with his thumb, before pushing the finger between Nate's puffed, red lips.  
  
“I want to fuck you,” he said quietly.  
  
Nate swore around his finger, before backing off a little to give him room to slide into the tub. Brad sat down on the step inside it and circled his arms around Nate's waist, pulling him closer. Nate moved to straddle his lap and they rested their heads into the other's neck for a long moment, silent but for their breath.  
  
“Come on, then,” Nate whispered next to his ear, his tongue coming out to lick the skin there. “Come on.”  
  
“Fuck, Nate,” Brad whispered back, his nails scraping at Nate's skin. He missed Nate's skin almost as much as twelve different things he missed the most.  
  
Nate ground down, making their cocks slide along, eliciting a moan from Brad.  
  
“Get me ready first.”  
  
Brad reached out for the lotion on the edge of the tub. His orgasm slowed him down a little, made him relax, but Nate grinding in his lap was going to get him hard and needy pretty fast.  
  
He kissed Nate at the same moment he pushed the first finger inside him and Nate shuddered above him. Brad moved to kiss him on the neck, licking and grazing with his teeth. Nate's hands were gripping Brad's head when he added the second and third finger.  
  
“Now, Brad,” he said, breathing hard. “Now.”  
  
Brad pushed in at once, probably too fast, but he couldn't help it. Nate tightened up and stopped moving.  
  
“Fuck.”  
  
“You okay?” Brad whispered, lips against his forehead.  
  
“I need a moment.”  
  
“Okay.” He closed his eyes and focused on breathing slowly.   
  
“Okay,” Nate said after eternity, shifting a little. Brad jerked his hips without thinking.  
  
“Sorry. Sorry.”  
  
“No, it's okay.” Nate rolled his hips and Brad tightened his hands on Nate's sides. “You can move now.”  
  
So he did. Slowly at first, but when he saw Nate responded to it, he quickened his pace. Nate was looking at him, eyes glazed and face red and sweaty, and he was so beautiful Brad could choke on it. Nate's head thrown back when he came was probably the most gorgeous thing Brad had ever seen.  
  
He was too busy coming to say that out loud, which was probably for the best.  
  
The reality hit him hard at the same time as the cold air after leaving the tub. He remembered what happened with Terry, what was happening all the time, and his shoulders suddenly felt heavier.   
  
“What's wrong?” Nate asked, zipping his jeans, barefoot and covered in goose-bumps.  
  
Brad shrugged, throwing his t-shirt on. “Nothing. We should go.”  
  
“Listen,” Nate started, putting on his sneakers, but Brad didn't let him finish.  
  
“Not now, Nate. Let's go.”  
  
“What's going on?” Nate asked, following him out. “Come on, Brad, don't do this.”  
  
Brad didn't say anything and just kept walking, focusing on how uncomfortable and cold it felt to have jeans stuck to his still wet skin.  
  
He pretended not to notice when Nate stopped walking.  
  
  
#  
  
  
For the rest of February and the whole month of March, Brad seemingly couldn't stop. Couldn't fly fast enough, high enough. Couldn't hit the ball hard enough.  
  
Nate hardly ever left the library.  
  
  
#  
  
  
“Bradley Colbert, the Headmistress wants to see you in her office,” the Fat Lady told him when he came down to the Common Room.  
  
Poke whistled. “Well, well, Bradley, I guess you're finally going to pay for your sins.”  
  
“I'm paying for them by living with the likes of you.”  
  
“You're weeping for my awesomeness, Iceman,” he snorted. “Weeping.”  
  
“Yes,” Brad deadpanned. “I weep a lot. I'm going away now just to curl up and cry in the darkest corner of the castle.”  
  
“Have fun.”  
  
Brad spent the time it took to get to McGonagall's office trying to come up with the reason for the trip. He didn't skip class. His grades were awesome. He didn't kill anyone. He didn't even threaten anybody this week.  
  
Maybe he did need help, come to think of it.  
  
“Come in, Mr Colbert,” Professor McGonagall said with a little smile. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”  
  
“Good morning, Professor. I came as soon as I got the message.”  
  
She nodded. “Very well. Please, sit down.” She showed him the chair and kept going when he took a seat. “You did nothing wrong, let's clear that up up front.”  
  
Brad had to admit, even if only to himself, that he did relax a little.  
  
“Remember when I told you you have a real talent for Transfiguration magic?”  
  
“Of course I do, Ma'am.” He didn't forget things like that.  
  
“That's why I asked you here today. I wanted to ask if you're considering it for your future career.”  
  
Brad stared at her for a moment. It's not like she didn't tell him that before. She mentioned it during winter break. But today it made his breath catch and he could almost hear blood pumping faster in his brain.  
  
“I...”  
  
“It's okay if you don't know yet, Brad,” she said gently. “I'm not asking for your blood... I'm not asking you to commit to anything you don't want to.”  
  
He nodded.  
  
“You're young and you're allowed not to know, Brad,” she said and Brad felt the tension in his fucking _calves_ ease up.  
  
“I know,” he said. Didn't stop him for wanting to, though. “There's an idea I have,” he continued, shrugging before shifting in his chair.  
  
McGonagall raised her eyebrows. “And what is it?”  
  
Brad looked at her for a few seconds. He didn't want to look around to see all those creepy former headmasters and headmistresses staring at him.  
  
“What if I wanted to become an animagus?”  
  
She nodded. “Somehow, it doesn't surprise me in the least,” she said, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the desk. “It's a lot of hard work, I hope you understand that.”  
  
He did. “Challenge is not a deterrent for me.”  
  
McGonagall smiled. “I thought it wouldn't.” His surprise had to show, because she continued. “Your actions and the company you keep seemed to suggest you like the challenge.”  
  
Brad tried to contain a snort. “Ray Person is... special, but he is not that difficult, at this point.”  
  
“Ah, Ray, yes. Him, too.”  
  
And Brad was almost certain she was fucking with his head now. What did she mean by ‘too’?  
  
“Anyway,” she said, opening the drawer in her desk and taking out a piece of paper and handing it to Brad. “Here's some basic information about the school you may consider if you decide to go that route. I wanted you to have it. The principal there is a good friend of mine, I'm always trying to send some talent his way.”  
  
“Thank you, Ma'am. I truly appreciate that you thought of me.”  
  
“You earned it, Mr Colbert. And all the praise you're getting. But don't get used to it just yet,” she said, still half-smiling. “I also have to suggest that you try not to break anyone's bones with the quaffle during the next game. You're not on the defense and we're not a violent team.”  
  
“Yes, Ma'am. I'll try my best not to kill anyone.”  
  
“Excellent. Try to score a lot, though. I got used to winning the championship.”  
  
“That's the plan.”  
  
“Good. Thank you again for coming to see me.”  
  
Brad nodded, said his goodbyes and left. He ran down the stairs and stopped around the corner of the corridor. He leaned against the wall and stared in the dim light at the pamphlet he was gripping in his hand.  
  
Maybe it really could happen.  
  
  
#  
  
  
The last game of the year happened in the middle of April and Gryffindor was playing against Ravenclaw. Brad was fairly certain they could beat the Ravenclaws by scoring, but he had to admit that their seeker, Katie, was better than Gina. Anything could happen.  
  
“It will be alright, brother,” Rudy said, clapping him on the shoulder. “We're coming out there as warriors and we'll be leaving as victors.”  
  
Brad had honestly no idea how anyone could talk like Rudy did and get away with it, worse even, pull it off, but he did. Brad was impressed, almost against his will.  
  
“Let's go and kick their ass!” Poke shouted and that Brad understood much better.  
  
They were the last ones on the field; Gina, Mike, Nate, and Ginny were already there. Brad wasn't going to stare, he avoided looking at him at all in the locker room, but now, in the harsh light of the sun, Nate looked terrible. Pale skin and dark circles under his eyes, which were half-closed when Nate didn't try to keep them open wider than usual.  
  
  
It was Nate's MO to disappear around the time of the exams, not showing up for meals with the rest of them and generally becoming a hermit. Brad told himself that this was his excuse for not noticing sooner and not acting on it. But this was even worse and it was April, almost two months before they had to take any test. He should have known better.  
  
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” he murmured to himself.  
  
Ginny, standing next to him and being hopefully the only person to hear him, looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Finally decided you want to dig your head out of your ass, then?”  
  
“Shut up, Weasley, we have a game to win.”  
  
“Well, at least you know how to handle _that_.”  
  
  
The game was awful. It started raining half an hour into the match and the wind sped up. Mike and Nate were doing everything they could, but Ravenclaws apparently had a lot of pent up frustration to burn through, because they were hitting them left and right. It looked like they almost gave up on scoring goals and concentrated on keep Gryffindors from scoring instead.  
  
Brad got seriously pissed off when the bludger flied just by his ear fourth time in ten minutes.  
  
He got mad when Swenson, one of the Ravenclaw's chasers, ricocheted the bludger right into Nate, who, anticipating that the ball was going to be flung at Brad, was in a position that made it impossible for him to avoid an attack on himself. He got hit in the right arm so hard he let go of his bat and dived towards the ground involuntarily, before gaining control back and righting himself. After examining his arm, he waved at Madame Hooch to indicate he can only move one arm and he needed replacement.  
  
When the game picked up soon after that, Brad scored fifty points in seven minutes. Katie caught the ball ten minutes later, but they still won by twenty points.  
  
After the shower, Brad went straight to the Infirmary.  
  
“Apparently human rights aren't respected in this building, did you know that?” Nate asked him the second he spotted him near his bed.  
  
“No?”  
  
“Madame Pomfrey told me that. Apparently I do not have the right to leave this room until she decides I can.”  
  
“Torture,” Brad said dryly.  
  
“Don't laugh at me.”  
  
“I'm not. I just think you should know by now that staying over for observation is a pretty normal thing.”  
  
“I don't want normal,” Nate told him, resting his head on the pillow. “Fuck normal. I don't even know what that is anymore.”  
  
Brad tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Are you stoned?”  
  
“Slightly,” Nate admitted after a moment of consideration. “Which is why you shouldn't use normal things, while talking to me. Like logic. Don't use that. You should never try logic while talking with a slightly stoned person.”  
  
 _I can't afford not to use logic while talking to you._  
  
“Noted.” He got up from the chair. “I will talk to you when the drugs wear off, then.”  
  
“Will you?” Nate asked, his eyes bright from the drugs. Probably.  
  
“Nate.”  
  
He was injured. He was on painkillers. Brad couldn't.  
  
“I miss you,” Nate said quietly, looking at his hands resting on the blanket.  
  
Fuck it. Brad leaned in and kissed Nate softly, his right hand landing on Nate's neck as natural as anything. He pulled back after a few seconds and Nate strained to follow him and close the distance.  
  
“Lie down, Nate,” Brad told him, nudging him gently back.  
  
“I'm fine,” he said, catching his wrist and tracing Brad's pulse point with his thumb. “It's only my arm.”  
  
“Right now it's also your brain. You're high.”  
  
“I'm good for kissing, though. Not too high for it.” He nodded, sure of his assessment. “Definitely not.”  
  
“Not sober enough.”  
  
Nate tried to pull him in by the wrist he was still holding on to, but Brad didn't move.  
  
“It's not like you don't know I consent to kissing you. A lot,” Nate pointed out.  
  
Brad smiled softly. “I think we should try talking first now, for a change.”  
  
“You want to talk?” Nate asked, widening his eyes. He let go of Brad's wrist to look at his own fingers from up close. “Just how high am I?”  
  
Brad snorted. “Shut up.”  
  
Nate opened his mouth, but Brad interfered.  
  
“If you say something about how I can shut you up by kissing you, I'm _not_ talking later on. I change my mind.”  
  
Nate blinked.  
  
“Liar,” he muttered, but didn't say anything else.  
  
Brad turned around and left before he could break his own promise.  
  
  
#  
  
  
Brad came to collect Nate from the infirmary first thing next morning. He was fine, with broken bones fixed and the drugs out of his system. He smiled wide at Brad over the shoulder of Madame Pomfrey, who was checking him one more time.  
  
“You came,” he said, almost jumping out of the bed.  
  
“Yes.” Brad could swear he heard Madame Pomfrey's muffled chuckle and judging from the way Nate looked at her with accusation, he was right. But Nate was shirtless, so Brad was too busy staring to feel embarrassed.  
  
“Can I go now?” Nate asked, reaching for his t-shirt with the previously injured hand to show he was fine.  
  
“Yes,” Madame Pomfrey decided, stepping back and giving Brad a couple of seconds of great view before Nate put his t-shirt on. “But keep an eye on the symptoms of concussion.”  
  
“I didn't even get hit in the head!”  
  
“And take a nice, long nap,” she added, pointing a finger at him. “Don't think I didn't notice you look like you haven't slept in a week. And there are two solutions. Either you do what you're told and what you desperately need to, or I will bring you back here and won't let out before the next millennium. Is that clear?”  
  
“Yes, Ma'am,” Nate nodded, standing up and stretching his arms above his head.  
  
Brad stared some more.  
  
“Brad!” Madame Pomfrey said in a tone suggesting it wasn't the first time she tried to get his attention.  
  
“Is that clear?”  
  
Nate's sleeping. Yes, of course, Brad can take him to their room and chain him to the... He shook his head. “Crystal clear, Ma'am.”  
  
“Good. Now you can go.”  
  
They stepped out of the infirmary and Nate let out a sigh of relief. “Finally.”  
  
“Stop with the melodrama,” Brad told him with a mocking smile. “You were there for one night. Now come on, let's get you to the bedroom.”  
  
“I'm not going to sleep!”  
  
“You look like hell, Nate.”  
  
Nate looked at him. “I've been looking like hell for over a month, this has nothing to do with yesterday.”  
  
Brad had to fight the urge to get away, the itching to go in the other direction. “Yesterday didn't help.”  
  
“I'm fine.”  
  
“You're not fine, you said it yourself, you've been looking like hell for over a month.”  
  
“Well, this,” Nate gestured at himself, “is as fine as I can get now.”  
  
“That's not true.”  
  
“What do you want from me, Brad?” Nate asked, opening the door to the Astronomy Tower and Brad wondered if he planned this. It was too windy to get out, but they sat down on the steps near the top.  
  
“I promised you we'd talk,” Brad said after two minutes of silence.  
  
Nate nodded. “I hope you didn't count on me not remembering that.”  
  
“I didn't,” Brad said and actually meant it. That conversation was long overdue. “First of all, I'm sorry.”  
  
Nate turned around to look him in the eye. “For what?”  
  
Brad shrugged.  
  
“For the last two months? And even before, fuck, the whole year maybe.” He took a deep breath. “I'm sorry I kissed you that night, the first night, during the Battle.” And he could see he was fucking this up, Nate was pulling away and Brad reached out to stop him. “Wait. Wait. I'm not sorry I kissed you at all. I'm sorry I didn't kiss you sooner. In better circumstances. Just... I wanted it to be different.”  
  
“You wanted it, though,” Nate said and there was something in his voice that made it almost a question.  
  
“Fuck, Nate,” Brad brushed his fingers through his hair. “Of course I did. I was imagining different scenarios for years. And then I went with a different one, the worst one, probably.”  
  
“It wasn't the worst one,” Nate said, moving closer again, so their thighs were touching. “Hooking up and then dying during the Battle, that would be the worst one.”  
  
Brad snorted. “True. But I also wouldn't put 'hooking up on the night of the Battle and then avoiding doing anything about it for months' on my top ten list.”  
  
“Definitely not. But, you know, I could have done something, too,” Nate admitted, looking down at his sneakers. “It was a hard year for all of us, I guess is all I'm saying. We didn't make all the right choices, because we had other stuff to deal with.”  
  
“Yeah, well...”  
  
“And I guess I left it to you, made it your responsibility, because you seem to be handling all of this much better than me. Not this,” Nate gestured between them, “but the whole post-war, soon-to-be-post-school thing.” He looked up at Brad, taking in his eyes and lips, and eyes again. “You make all of it look so easy.”  
  
Brad hold his breath for a long moment, unable to look away. _You make all of it worth it_ , he thought, staring at Nate, a guy who was always just there, and then he repeated it out loud.  
  
Brad knew and lived with Nate for six and a half years at this point and he had seen him happy, sad, scared, proud, excited, worried, angry, and about a hundred other things. He'd seen him drunk, high on painkillers, bloody, sweaty, he'd seen him naked and covered in come, he'd seen him crying over a dead body and he'd seen him fighting with Death Eaters. Brad thought that he had basically seen all of Nate, one way or another.  
  
But Nate's bright green eyes wide open, his smile that had to strain his muscles, and the way he leaned into Brad, that was a new look. And it was definitely at the top of the list of his favorites.  
  
He smiled back, half-hoping and half-scared that his face was showing Nate something similar. Because they got here. It took them time, too much of it, probably, but they were here now.  
  
Nate kissed his cheek, before moving down to his lips. It was sloppy, because they were both grinning too hard, but it didn't matter. Brad put his hand on Nate's neck, his thumb caressing the jawline back and forth, and Nate scratched Brad's lower back with his fingernails. And somehow it felt different than all those other times when there were doing this. There were no bad memories or fear of death, no urgency and adrenaline.  
  
They were here now.  
  
  
#  
  
  
It wasn't like they didn't know the anniversary of the Battle was coming up. They all remembered the date and if someone was somehow suffering from amnesia, they would still hear about it everywhere they turned for a month before the day.  
  
It didn't prepare them, though. Brad didn't feel ready and looking at his housemates, he wasn't the only one. It was the eve of the anniversary and somehow the whole Gryffindor House was gathered in the Common Room.  
  
“I'm not even sure what being ready is supposed to feel like,” Nate said, tilting his head back to rest on Brad's arm.  
  
“Was it stupid of me to expect one day I would just wake up and be ready?” Ginny asked from the armchair next to the couch they were sitting on. “It worked last time. Well, almost.”  
  
Brad shrugged. He didn't know. There were days when he expected that, too. When he got back home for the holidays last year, it was supposed to go away. When he got back to Hogwarts. When he stopped having flashbacks. When he and Nate got their shit together.  
  
No such luck. It was getting better, though, so maybe that had to be enough.  
  
“If there's anything that's going to be easier once we leave Hogwarts, it's probably that anniversary,” Nate said with his eyes half-closed. “A victory day, not the mourning.” He ran his fingers over the black bracelet on his left wrist, something all of them were wearing this week.  
  
“Well, then maybe we should just start now,” Ray said, lifting his head from Walt's lap. He looked around at them and at the rest of the room. “Fuck this,” he added, standing up, and jumped onto the table. People turned to look at him and the room fell silent, everyone wondering what Ray was about to do this time. “We drank a lot this year for those who died. And that's good, that's great even. We should do that and I hope we will keep doing that in the future. But we forgot one very important toast and I think it's time to fix that.” He looked around and raised his glass. “To those who are still here.”  
  
There was a long second of silence and Brad felt himself shift, but Ginny beat him to it.  
  
“To those who are still here,” she said, raising from her seat. And one by one, all of them stood up and made the toast.  
  
  
When they came into the bedroom two hours later, Brad caught Nate's wrist and stopped him from going to his bed, instead pushing him in the direction of his own, hoping against hope that no one would say anything.  
  
They were living with Ray, though, so no such luck.  
  
“No sex with us in the room!”  
  
“Shut up, Ray,” Brad said, the curtain falling behind him and Nate. He took off his t-shirt and saw Nate do the same.  
  
“Just saying,” Ray added, because he could never do what was asked of him.  
  
“You wanted us together,” Brad pointed out loudly, throwing his jeans on the floor, and slipped under the covers, smirking at Nate. “Deal with it.”  
  
“I'm dealing with a lot just looking at you mooning over each other all the time now. I don't want to have nightmares because you can't keep it in your pants.”  
  
“Shut up, Ray,” Nate said, settling in next to Brad, and Ray did.  
  
“It's like you're a magician,” Brad murmured into Nate's shoulder, spooning behind him. Nate shook with silent laughter and tightened his grip on Brad's arm around his stomach.  
  
Brad kissed the back of his head and breathed in the smell of his shampoo. He felt the tension slipping out of his body and he closed his eyes.  
  
  
“We're going out!”  
  
Ray's words woke Brad up and it took him about three seconds to realize what was going on. He opened his eyes and saw Nate sitting between his feet, smiling at him. He smiled back.  
  
“At last,” Nate said, crawling higher between Brad's legs. Brad opened them wider without a thought. “I was considering putting Silencio around the bed.”  
  
Nate's head was right above Brad's very interested cock.  
  
“And what were you planning on doing after that?” Brad asked, tucking his arms under the pillow and smirking.  
  
“I will give you a hint,” Nate said and tugged at Brad's boxers. Brad obediently lifted his hips to help Nate take them off. Nate leaned down and licked Brad's cock from the base to the tip in one quick sweep of the tongue. Brad's hips moved involuntarily before he could stop it, but Nate didn't stop to complain. He just licked again, and again. He put his nose under Brad's cock and breathed in and out, slow and deep, tickling Brad's balls and making him insane.  
  
“This is going to be over really,” Brad gasped, “fast.”  
  
“Don't hold out on my account,” Nate said, smiling, and then swallowed him down.  
  
Brad threw his head to the side and tightened his fingers in Nate's hair when he came few seconds later.  
  
When the high passed, he reached out for Nate, who was still between his legs, looking up at him with a smile.  
  
“Come here,” he said and Nate moved to lie on his side, tucking under Brad's arm, but he turned his face away when Brad wanted to kiss him.  
  
“You don't want my mouth anywhere near you right now.”  
  
Brad looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Yeah, that makes sense. Especially since you just had it on me and I wasn't complaining at all.”  
  
Nate shrugged. “Your dick doesn't care about my morning breath. Not to mention...”  
  
“And you think the rest of me cares?” he looked at Nate incredulously. “That's it, my dick is officially smarter than you.”  
  
He lifted himself on his elbow and looked down on Nate, his flushed skin, red, full lips, and that smile Brad was still getting used to seeing. He leaned down and kissed him softly, ignoring Nate's laughing protest.  
  
“Happy fucking anniversary,” Brad said with his lips still on Nate's. He dropped one hand down Nate's torso and lower. Nate's stomach shook from quick laughter.  
  
“You realize it actually is our _fucking_ anniversary, right?”  
  
Brad's hand stopped with the tips of his fingers just under the top of Nate's briefs. Nate let out a small whine of protest, but Brad just put his forehead on Nate's collarbone and started to laugh.  
  
“Fuck, this is so bad,” he said before he slipped his hand further down and gripped Nate's cock.  
  
“Shut up,” Nate gasped, lifting his hips to meet Brad's rhythm, “it's awesome.”  
  
He came five minutes later, choking on laughter and orgasm, and Brad was torn between admiring the look on his face or the new hickey he put low on Nate's neck.  
  
Maybe they were going to be more than fine.  
  
  
#  
  
  
The day went downhill from there, which was, if a bit disappointing, not exactly surprising. The day that started with great sex was rarely able to improve, even if it wasn't the first anniversary of the biggest battle magical world had seen in years.  
  
It was better than expected, though.  
  
The afternoon classes were off, because the Minister was coming and the whole school went insane. Outside the castle journalists were running around, taking photos of every brick and every face, and trying to interview as many students as possible without being caught by one of the teachers.  
  
From the bedroom window, Brad could see Nate and Ginny standing near the rows and rows of chairs. Ginny was half-talking, half-reading from the paper she was holding in her hands, most probably rehearsing the speech she was supposed to make in a few hours. Nate was mostly just nodding, commenting on something she said from time to time .  
  
Brad wanted to sleep the whole thing off and wake up tomorrow morning, but he didn't let himself hope. As if sensing his thoughts, Nate turned around and looked up to see their window. From the angle Brad was standing, Nate couldn't be sure he was there, but he nodded anyway, before turning back to Ginny.  
  
Nate had to be there and that meant Brad did, too.  
  
  
When minister Shacklebolt arrived two hours later, they all stood up and kept standing until he made his way to the podium. He looked at them for a long moment, before he leaned forward and said, “At ease.”  
  
Suddenly, there were chills running through Brad's body and he felt the silence like a punch to the gut. He could see Ginny, who was standing next to the podium and waiting for her turn, and her hands were shaking so hard she dropped her speech.  
  
The Minister motioned for her to come up and speak, so she took the papers and came closer. She looked around at them, still standing, and closed her eyes for a second.  
  
“I had the whole speech prepared, but,” she said, turning to the Minister, “now I just want to thank you. And I'm sure I speak for all of us here when I say, it's good to be home.”  
  
Someone behind Brad started clapping and suddenly everyone did. The applause was loud and seemed to create an echo of itself, coming in and out as waves.  
  
Shacklebolt waited before they sat down to continue speaking.  
  
“It's truly an honor to be here today among you. I can't pretend to imagine how you felt last year, fighting that battle here, at your school, at your home. I won't try to tell you I understand how you felt after. How hard the year that passed since that day was for you.” He looked around. “What I can tell you is: it's okay to struggle. It's okay to have bad days. It's okay to wish the world looked like you remember it looking before the war. I can tell you that I struggle, that I have bad days, that I wish I still looked at the world the same way I did before the war. I can tell you that I have probably never been as proud of anything or anyone like I am of you. You can listen to it, accept it or reject it. You can laugh at that or not. But I wish you would believe me. I wish you would believe that your actions made me proud to be one of you, made me want to aspire to be like you. Fighting when it's hard. Fighting when it's easier to hide or surrender. Protecting your loved ones. Protecting what's right. And Merlin knows, I hope we will never have to fight again. But if we do, I hope I will be just like you. Thank you.”  
  
The applause was even longer this time. Brad could hear someone sniff behind him, but he didn't turn around. He looked at Nate instead, who smiled and nodded. And when he leaned in for a kiss, Brad didn't even think of stopping him.   
  
  
After that, the formal part was over and it pretty much turned into a picnic of sorts, only with the Minister, a few of his co-workers, and some journalists who just couldn't leave.  
  
Brad was sitting under the tree with Ray and Walt, a little out of the way. They had the perfect watching space, but weren't bugged by a lot of people. Brad could see Nate and Mia talking with McGonagall and then being introduced to the Minister.  
  
“You're staring again,” Ray elbowed him and moved away quickly before he could reciprocate. Walt snorted.  
  
“I'm not staring,” he said, looking away for a second before coming back to looking at Nate.  
  
“Sure. You're just, how's it called? People watching. Because you love people so much.”  
  
“Adore them, even,” Brad deadpanned.  
  
Suddenly, he could see Nate's head shoot up at something the Minister was saying and his posture straightening. Brad was up before he even thought about moving.  
  
“Hey, what's going on?” he heard Ray say, but he ignored him. Nate was talking now, gesturing with his hands and the Minister was listening with his eyes firmly on Nate. It looked fine, but Brad felt... something. Something happened and he needed to check if everything was fine.  
  
“... can't do what we can. Of course they would be uncomfortable with that,” Nate was saying when he came up to them.  
  
“Brad?” Nate raised his eyebrows at him. He probably didn't expect him to move from the shadow the whole afternoon. “I'm sorry, Minister, this is Brad Colbert, he's a seventh-year Gryffindor, just like me.”  
  
“Nice to meet you, Brad,” the Minister said, shaking his hand. “I was just telling Mia and Nate about the new Ministry department.”  
  
“New division?” Brad asked.  
  
Nate looked at him with a smile that was probably two times bigger than usual.  
  
“Dealing with the relations between the magic world and the muggles. There are some things that need to be fixed there.”  
  
“Nate was just listing them for me when you came over.”  
  
Nate actually blushed a little. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to...”  
  
Shacklebolt raised his hands. “No, no, it's fine, honestly. Actually, I would love to hear more about what you have to say. Come see me after you graduate, if you'd be interested in a job.”  
  
And there it was again, Nate's whole posture shifting. But Brad could see now that it wasn't a sign of trouble. Nate was smiling and shaking Shacklebolt's hand, and Brad couldn't stop staring.  
  
He didn't see Nate so happy outside of, well, them, for a long, long time. It made him both glad and wary at the same time.  
  
“It was good to meet you, Brad,” the Minister's words brought him back to the moment. He said thank you, he shook his hand and he watched him go.  
  
“It's good we have a capable minister now, isn't it?” he asked, looking back at Nate.  
  
At a starry-eyed, grinning Nate.  
  
“He did a great job here today,” Nate said, trying for cool. “He said what we needed to hear.”  
  
“Right up to offering you a job,” Brad pointed out. He should be glad for Nate. He should. And he did, he was happy that something made Nate so excited. And yet.  
  
Something had to show in his voice, because Nate stopped grinning and raised his eyebrows. “What?”  
  
“Are you going to take it?” Brad asked, as if he didn't see how Nate was acting right now.  
  
“I don't know yet,” Nate said, smiling at Brad and shrugging. “We still have the NEWTs and we still have almost two months before we graduate. Everything can happen.”  
  
That didn't exactly calm Brad down. “But you want to take it,” he pressed on.  
  
“Brad, I don't even know what 'it' is. He's the Minister of Magic. Yes, I'm interested. Yes, I want to meet with him and learn more about it. This is an opportunity to do something important and something I didn't know was available, so of course I'm excited. But that's it for now.” He placed a hand on Brad's shoulder. “Besides, you're going to London, right? That would be...”  
  
“Don't make it about me, Nate,” Brad cut him off.  
  
“I'm not doing anything.” Nate tightened his grip on Brad's shoulder as if he would run otherwise. “But I'm also not going to pretend your whereabouts aren't going to influence my decision.”  
  
“They shouldn't.” And someone should shut him up, because Brad obviously lost control of what he was saying.  
  
Nate hung his head and the silence stretched for a long moment.  
  
“No,” Nate said, looking up at him again. “They most certainly should. And they are. I'm sorry if that's uncomfortable for you, but that's the truth.”  
  
And he withdrew, probably ready to just go away, but Brad's arms came up around his sides to stop him.  
  
“Wait. I'm sorry. I do want you in London, obviously. I just don't want for you to, you know.”  
  
“Waste my best years waiting for you and then leave when our tragic love affair comes to an end?”  
  
“That's... not how I would put it.”  
  
“But I'm not wrong,” Nate pointed out. “And I should be wrong about that, because you know me and you should know that I would never do something like that.”  
  
Brad brought their foreheads together and sighed. “I know.”  
  
“So, are you done freaking out and may I relive the part where the fucking Minister of Magic offered me a job?”  
  
“May you? Well, I don't know, we still have the NEWTs and we still have almost two months before we graduate. Everything can happen.”  
  
Nate laughed and Brad pulled him closer.  
  
“Happy fucking anniversary,” he said before kissing him.  
  
  
  
#  
  
  
Brad would love to say that the NEWTs time was anti-climatic after everything that happened that year, but he would be lying terribly. It was two weeks of sleepless nights and short tempers, long hours of studying, and reading, and writing papers. Two weeks of falling to bed exhausted and waking up not rested enough to do it all over again.  
  
It was two out of the three weeks left of his time at Hogwarts and Brad could come up with a lot of better scenarios for them than that. He should be having sex all over the place, literally. He should be partying and making some bad decisions, teenager style.  
  
Instead, he was sitting in the Common Room with three books on his lap and trying to memorize them by looking at them.  
  
The group of people coming back from the Potions exam was a nice distraction.  
  
“We have survived the war. This has to be easier than that,” Ray said, falling down onto the couch in the Common Room.  
  
“At this point I'm not sure it is.” Walt collapsed next to him.  
  
“Yeah, it's only your future on the line, not the whole world's.”  
  
“Comforting,” Walt muttered.  
  
Brad snorted.  
  
“Don't, Brad.” Ray pointed a finger at him. “Anyone who doesn't have any exam today isn't allowed to mock other people's pain and suffering for the whole day. I'm making this a rule until the end of NEWTs.”  
  
Half of the room clapped and cheered. The other half didn't even raise their head from their books.  
  
“This is a stupid rule,” Brad said.  
  
“You're not mocking my pain today, Brad. Or tomorrow. Or, fuck, three days from now. Deal with it. Or, better yet, go deal with your boyfriend.”  
  
Brad shut the book. “What happened?”  
  
“He has a serious problem with taking breaks, you know. He left the room with us after the exam and then decided he was going straight to the library. We tried to change his mind, but you know how that goes.”  
  
Brad knew really well. He sighed and got up, putting all the books under the armchair.  
  
  
“Nate, come on,” he tried for the fifth time. “You can't keep studying twenty four seven.”  
  
Nate looked at him with raised eyebrows and Brad snorted.  
  
“It's not a challenge, you moron.” Brad kicked him under the table. “Come on, you know all of this already. Stop studying.”  
  
“Hey, I'm not the one going back to school next year,” Nate pointed out.  
  
“So what, this is your last chance to prove yourself? That's bullshit.”  
  
“I didn't say that.”  
  
“Nate, everyone knows you're brilliant already. It's not hard to figure out.” Nate shrugged, but Brad didn't let him speak. “Come on, we're wasting our time when we could be having sex in the dungeons.”  
  
“You're a true romantic.”  
  
“I try. But I operate on tight schedule, since you decided studying is a better way of spending your time than crossing things off our list when we still have a chance.”  
  
Nate laughed, but he did close his book.  
  
“Were you always this obsessed with sex?” he asked, standing up. He said it quietly, but Madhuri looked up at them with a smirk.  
  
“No,” Brad answered shortly, putting his hand on the small of Nate's back and ignoring her.  
  
Nate grinned and leaned back into the touch for a moment before he moved again towards the door.  
  
So, okay, yes, maybe Brad was having sex all over the place.  
  
  
#  
  
  
No one practiced any spells at their last DA meeting. Instead they were sitting on the floor and talking about everything but goodbyes.  
  
Someone proposed that the seventh-years would each give their best advice to the younger ones and Brad shook his head. “Come on, what do we know.”  
  
“No, no, I have a piece of advice for the young and bright,” Ray cut in. He looked around. “Here it is: Don't die.”  
  
And half of them laughed, but the other half nodded. Sometimes it was indeed just that simple.  
  
“Don't stop training,” Ginny said. “Don't become lazy just because there's no war going on right now.”  
  
“Work together,” Nate added. “Don't let House rivalry turn ugly. We're better and stronger when we're not fighting each other.”  
  
“Gryffindors should not let that be their excuse for not winning another Quidditch championship, though,” Brad added and got elbow in his side from Nate. But he smiled, too.  
  
“Take care of each other. And when you don't know what to do, get help.” Julia Smithson was the twin sister of Ramona, the girl who went home in the fall. She told them a month ago that Ramona got better and she was going back to school next year.  
  
“Have fun.”  
  
“... but study.”  
  
“Make the next year here the best one for you.”  
  
“Don't let the fear get the better of you.”  
  
“Use protection.”  
  
“Don't turn evil.”  
  
And it went on for a long while, funny, serious, crazy, the best and the worst advice they were able to give.  
  
After it was over and they were all going to dinner, Brad approached Shonda.  
  
“You're not going to cry on me, are you?” she said, smiling at him.  
  
“I'll try not to right now,” he told her. “But I'll probably cry myself to sleep tonight.”  
  
“That's sad. Maybe try something else before bed,” she said, looking left to where Nate stood, talking with Louis.  
  
Brad smacked her in the back of her head lightly. “Leave Nate alone.”  
  
She pouted. “Spoilsport.”  
  
“Okay, I'm done,” he told her, taking a step back. “See you never, hopefully.”  
  
“Okay, okay, wait.” She threw her arms around his neck and held on for a long moment before letting him go. “Now you can go.”  
  
Brad walked up to Nate, who finished talking with Louis and was waiting for him.  
  
“We're never having kids,” he told Nate firmly.  
  
He was met with stunned silence, but Nate shook it off pretty quickly. “That's good. I'm not sure those hips were meant for childbearing.”  
  
Brad suddenly felt frozen in place, just standing there and staring at Nate.  
  
“Oh-o, I see you’ve just realized what you said.” Nate tugged him by the wrist and pushed him towards the door. “Don't worry, I won't hold it against you.”  
  
Brad blinked quickly a couple of times, but didn't protest when Nate started leading him down the corridor. “It's...”  
  
“Brad, I'm serious. I know what you meant and I know you weren't proposing to me or anything. Breathe.”  
  
He did. In and out, once, twice, and a third time.  
  
“Shonda is evil,” he said, starting again with what he should have said.  
  
Nate nodded. “I have to agree. Those poor walls. Maybe she really holds a grudge against them for something.”  
  
“She wasn't a total disaster, though,” Brad felt the need to defend her and his teaching skills.  
  
“She's one of the best youngsters and you know it,” Nate smiled at him. “When she does hit her target.” He paused. “She'll be fine.”  
  
“I know. I hope.”  
  
“You can always send her angry owls to keep her in check.”  
  
“No way. She would send one back and I would have to listen to her screams about my heritage, my people skills, and probably my sex life as well.”  
  
“You have to learn how to live with an empty nest, then,” Nate told him. He tried to keep a straight face but failed miserably.  
  
“I hate you,” Brad told him.  
  
“Come on, don't be like that or I'll have to send you an angry owl.”  
  
How was that Brad's life, he wanted to know.  
  
  
#  
  
  
If the last two weeks were the NEWTs weeks, this was the week of goodbyes and Brad suddenly wasn't sure he wouldn't trade them off. They had the last DA meeting, the last Quidditch practice just for fun, now there was the last trip to Hogsmeade.  
  
Brad, Nate, Ray, and Walt went to the Weasley's shop to see how George was doing and they were surprised to see it open. The red sign said “WELCOME” and people were going in and out all the time. They were lucky there was a big group of third-years leaving just as they wanted to come in, so they sneaked in without problems.  
  
The store looked totally different than the last time they came by. The big room was filled with warm light, shelves full of toys, smiling people, and loud voices. George was behind the counter dealing with the endless line of customers, joking with them while packing their stuff. Brad also noticed Ron, George's younger brother, showing a group of boys something that looked ready to explode.  
  
“The greatest graduation gift ever!” Ray announced, and he and Walt disappeared into the crowd to buy out half of the shop, probably.  
  
“We've lost them for hours,” Nate said with a laugh.  
  
“Don't be too happy about this, somehow they always come back.”  
  
“You'll miss them terribly,” Nate told him and Brad refused to acknowledge that he probably meant something different than the next few hours.  
  
“Come on, let's buy something before there's nothing left.”  
  
  
After spending a small fortune at Weasleys' and the second one at Honeydukes, he and Nate sat down on a park bench to drink their smoothies and rest. They could see people, mostly Hogwarts students, going in and out of stores and coffee shops in a hurry, probably wanting to make the most of the trip here. Brad had thought he would’ve liked to go to a couple more places, but now he preferred to just sit there and rest, watching the people pass them by.  
  
“It's not like we're dying,” he said suddenly. Nate looked at him.  
  
“No, we're not.”  
  
“And Hogsmeade isn't going anywhere.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
  
#  
  
  
 **\-- epilogue --**  
  
  
They knew about this beforehand. It was hard not to, some of them had older siblings, some of them friends at higher years who would spill the beans. The graduation ceremony was the worst kept secret in history.  
  
Brad still felt like he was punched in the gut when he saw the boats on the lake shore.  
  
“This is the last Hogwarts tradition you will experience,” McGonagall said, standing before the group of all seventh-years. The towers of the castle were visible behind her. “The founders believed in the full circle of life. You will leave the school grounds the same way you came here for the first time. I hope we will meet again, someday, but for now, may the life be good to you. Be brave, be kind, be smart, and be loyal.”  
  
And with that, she took a step back and motioned them to take their places in the boats. Brad and Nate, Ray and Walt, and Poke, Poke without Gina, because he somehow understood what they were after. They found themselves in the same boat, just like seven years ago. They had to sit closer to each other and the boat seemed much smaller, but they made it work.  
  
“Don't fall out this time, Poke,” Brad told him with a smirk.  
  
“You make it sound like I actually did fall out last time.”  
  
“Hagrid saved your ass.”  
  
“Well, now I'm counting on you. Aside from Ray, maybe...”  
  
“Hey!”  
  
“... whose skinny ass would probably just fall out after me.”  
  
“Thanks for the confidence, man.”  
  
But they fell silent after the boats actually left the shore. They were all staring at Hogwarts and the figure of the Headmistress, getting smaller and smaller. Brad felt a little numb suddenly, so he grabbed the seat under his thigh and tightened his fingers around it. He looked at the guys in the boat, at Poke who was looking at Gina, of course, and at Ray who was laughing quietly at something Walt was whispering to him, both relaxed in an embrace. He looked at Nate in the end, who was looking back at him with a smile that still amazed Brad even after seeing it every day lately.  
  
“Are you going to help me with my suitcase this time?” Nate asked quietly, leaning on Brad harder.  
  
“You aren't a midget anymore,” he said with a chuckle.  
  
“But you are still a nice boy, aren't you?”  
  
Brad laughed at that. “I think you've got it all wrong.”  
  
Nate grinned. “No. I've got it just right.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've been nostalgic about Generation Kill fandom lately and then decided to put my old stories here.
> 
> This one was written for WarBigBang 2012 challenge over at livejournal.
> 
> I've tried to be as close to HP canon as I could, but I’ve made one change – I’ve moved Fred and George's shop to Hogsmeade. I needed it to be closer, so I could use it in the story.
> 
> Warnings: As it is a post-war story, there are mentions of things that could happen to a person after that - nightmares and flashbacks, mostly, but there's also a mention of suicide (no one of the main or even secondary characters, but if it’s something that could be triggering for you: it’s a teenage suicide and one of the characters reacts with anger towards that person)
> 
> Disclaimer: my stories in this fandom are based on the fictionalized characters from the HBO miniseries Generation Kill as portrayed by the cast. It's fiction, that's all. In no way I want to connect it to and I assume nothing about the people who are behind the story of the book that is behind the series. I mean no disrespect.


End file.
